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Your handy guide to Free League roleplaying-games

rasmusnord015 Comments

Whether you love fantasy role-playing games, post-apocalyptic survival, horror, science-fiction, investigation or a combination of these, Free League has you covered. This article is a guide to inspire you and help you consider whether one or more of these games are for you and your table.

The Swedish publisher and game developer has built an impressive suite of role-playing games. Each of the games are explicit in their themes and moods and the individual games try to emulate and reinforce them using the ruleset. They also share similarities in design beyond simple dice mechanics, which makes moving from one to the other easy.

Most of the games use some variation of the Year-Zero game engine and most of them are multi-award winning and outstanding in their presentation and design.

All of them are less complex than Dungeons & Dragons, primarily because the characters you can play have fewer unique capabilities and there aren’t 200+ spells you need to consider (as a player or GM) – though a few of their games are fairly “crunchy”. On the other hand, the rules governing exploration or social interaction aren’t usually as vague as in D&D (and many other older RPGs).

Fria Ligan (Free League) is a Swedish table top game studio and publisher established in 2011.

I own, and have read, most of Free League’s games, and I have played many of them. In the following text, I will briefly go over what unites them and add a few lines about each game. The aim is to help you pick your next game experience.

They are all beautiful and well produced games, and naturally there are some that I personally prefer over the others. But you might prefer different ones for different reasons. Therefore, the games aren’t ranked.

For each game I will however rate its complexity on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the most mechanically complex. This scale is an internal curve for the suite of Free League RPGs. It is not a comparison with other games like D&D, Blades in the Dark or Rolemaster.

NOTE: I don’t have any financial relation to Free League and I’ve paid for everything myself.

What unites the Free League games?

Beyond sharing mechanics (see below) there are some design choices which you can find in many, if not most, of the company’s games.

Emergent gameplay
Free League favor designs where drama and narrative emerge from exploration and a certain level of randomness plus the resulting player choice, rather than as pre-planned campaigns and designed narrative arcs (The Last Cyclade campaign and the Alien Cinematic Adventures being notable exceptions).

Twilight: 2000 use a set of regular playing cards to determine random events every day.



Mechanical abstraction of time and resources
The time inside the game is often divided into ‘shifts’ of six hours. The timeframe is used for travel, resting, crafting and in Bladerunner, for example, one character can follow up on one clue per shift, which encourages splitting the group. Resources like torches, rations or oxygen are often abstracted into a dice mechanic.

In Forbidden Lands, your consumeables are represented by a dice. For example, when making
a ranged attack you roll a D12 with a full quiver. On a ‘1’ your supply of arrows drop to a D10.

Exploration and hex-crawl
There are coherent rules for travel and exploring, tied in with the games’ use of skills, time and resources.
Many of the games come with big hex-maps, where the PCs are expected to venture forth and find fame or fortune, or simply need to explore in order to survive.

Forbidden Lands is one of many games that has hex crawling as part of its core mechanic.

Deadly combat & crits
Fighting in Free League’s games is usually very dangerous for the characters. Losing all your health doesn’t mean a character is dead, instead the character is ‘broken’ and a critical hit is applied. These crits can be instantly fatal, and frequently result in lost extremities or lingering penalties that need time to heal.

Most of the Free League games use a critical hit system. This is a part of the torso table from Twilight: 2000.
Access to effective medical care will often determine whether a character survives.


Mental damage on top of physical damage
Characters can become ‘broken’ not only from being injured, but also by stress or mental damage. Often there are also critical injuries tied to the mental damage. The exact mechanic differs from game to game.

In Alien, rolling a ‘1’ on your stress dice triggers a panic roll.


Downtime and base-building
Downtime is normally treated as an integral part of the game. Activities during downtime are often related to base-building, recovering from injuries, gathering resources or preparing for the next adventure (training, gathering information and so forth).

Constructing a head quarter or upgrading your starship is cool, and most of the games have base building integrated into the games’ down time mechanics. In both Vaesen and Mutant Year Zero, it is also a core part of the gameplay.

In Mutant: Year Zero, the characters must not just survive, but also improve their “Ark”.


Personal ties & social mechanics

The games have mechanized social ties and interactions, often combined with the experience system.

Commonly, players designate another character as their ‘buddy’ and another as their ‘rival’, and these ties are often reinforced with mechanical effects and experience points for eg: xp for putting your life at risk for your buddy.

The rules around social conflict are more rigorous than in Dungeons & Dragons and many other older RPGs. If you want something from an NPC and you win the roll, they must do it, or attack. Some games also feature a Command ability, where characters can even force other characters to do as they command (or suffer mental damage if they refuse) – or get them back up if they are mentally ‘broken’.

Some games also have personality traits or backgrounds that players can ‘activate’ to get a bonus.

The Officer career in the Alien RPG has access to the Pull Rank talent.

The Year Zero-Engine

All of the games use the YZ mechanics, except Mörk Borg, the One Ring, Symbaroum and a couple of others, which are published by Free League, but are designed by other indie game designers.

The system is a dice pool system, where you must roll at least one ‘6’ to succeed in a task. Typically, you add your attribute and your skill together in addition to tools or weapons you employ, which determines how many dice you roll. Most of the games use D6, but a few also use D8, D10 and D12 (still with the aim to roll 6+).

All the games feature a “push” mechanic, where players can reroll a test, but with significant consequences if the attempt still fails, and sometimes with the ‘push’ causing physical or mental damage.

There are normally four attributes: usually called Strength, Agility, Wits and Empathy, which are determined at character creation and can’t be improved during gameplay.

The games feature 12-16 skills, with 3-4 skills associated with each attribute. The skills are kept at a high abstraction level. For example, ‘Manipulation’ typically covers all social rolls and Piloting will cover everything from motorcycles to starships (sometimes with options of more granularity).

In addition, characters have Talents – like Feats in D&D. These are special abilities that often come in two categories: a group which is tied to your archetype (class, if you will) and general talents, which everyone can buy with experience, like bonus to skill rolls in particular situations or with specific weapons, cyberware, the ability to reroll critical hits etc.

A few of the games also feature powers or magic of some kind.

The Games (Year Zero Games first, then non YZ games)

Alien

In this retro-science-fiction horror game you play colonists, space truckers or colonial marines who must face a cold, capitalistic, uncaring and horrific universe.

On top of the fearsome and deadly xenomorphs (and other nightmares), the characters can become embroiled in corporate plots and experiments, espionage and the conflict and warfare between the major political factions in the Alien universe. Or try to avoid them, while making their payments on their ship.

The rules are quite simple and use a stress and panic mechanic to underscore the key themes of the game.

Initially, the game may seem narrow, but it can work very well for a range of playstyles, including scary military science fiction, survival horror, corporate espionage and gritty, free trader, planet hopping adventures.

The explicitly ‘cinematic adventures’ published for the game are excellent for 3-5+ session dramas, where each character has hidden agendas that they need to achieve, often not aligned with all the other characters. Not many will survive through to the end of Act 3…

Because of the simple mechanics and well-known lore and visual style, it is a great game for first time role-players.

Play this game if you love gritty science fiction and horror.

“I loved it. An action packed rock’n’roll trip down paranoia lane, as if Jeremy Saulnier was given the task of directing an Alien movie.”

Martin Svendsen, playing Private Hammer in the adventure Destroyer of Worlds

Read more in my full review.

COMPLEXITY: 2

Bladerunner

This investigation heavy neon-noir game is the latest Free League game and based on the Bladerunner universe. You take the role as Bladerunners – elite police officers with a license to kill. Either as humans or replicants. It is designed for small groups (1-4 players), and takes place in 2037, about a decade before the second film of the franchise.

Characters (a variety of cops, like City Speaker, Doxie, Inspector and Skimmer) struggle not only with solving their case, but also with the morality of their actions and what it means to be human.

An interesting feature is that solving the case gets you promotion points, which you can use to get more talents. Whereas going against the rules, like letting replicants go, will earn you humanity points, which you need to upgrade skills.


The game is heavy on mood and lore and is great for character focused and RP-heavy games.

The starter set comes with an excellent adventure and some of the best props and handouts I’ve ever seen.

Play this game if you love character driven, role-playing heavy investigation games.

COMPLEXITY: 3

Coriolis – the Third Horizon

This far future occult space opera game has a distinct ‘Arabian nights’ atmosphere with planets teeming with life and the growing threat of the djinni said to come from ‘the dark between the stars’.

The game is set in a region of space that contains about two dozen systems connected by jump gates. You should expect to play explorers, pilots, zealots, mercenaries, spies and diplomats, normally with your own spacecraft. The Horizon has a significant spiritual aspect to the world in the form of Icons – saints that influence the world.

There are several supplements for the game and a big three-volume Mercy of the Icons campaign.

If you are familiar with older space opera RPGs, Coriolis is somewhere between Traveller and Fading Suns. Less spiritual than Fading Suns, but more than eg Traveller.


If you want a taste, I can recommend the actual play of the Mercy of the Icons campaign by Garblag Games.

Play Coriolis if you enjoy high adventure space opera games spiced with spirituality and the occult.

COMPLEXITY: 4

Forbidden Lands

The sword & sorcery-style fantasy RPG is designed with the Old School Renaissance mindset. It is a hex-crawl, open world focused game, where the characters frequently are rogues and sell-swords, more focused on personal gain than heroic deeds.

Survival and exploration are at the core of the system. Your equipment is key to your survival and will break (including arms and armor). Combat is swift and deadly, but ill-suited to encounter after encounter dungeon crawls.

As well as the regular humans, elves, dwarves etc., you can also play orcs, goblins and wolf-men. There are unique talents for each profession (class) which makes the various roles (eg Fighter, Minstrel, Rider, Druid, Peddler) distinct.

Unlike many older fantasy games, people and monsters don’t use the same mechanics. Each monster has fewer stats and a list of six “special attacks”, which makes fighting them feel unique and surprising, whether facing a harpy or a death knight.

Forbidden Lands can easily be used for a homebrew world. The system is simple enough that you can easily modify the spells and monsters.

The game is well-supported with two full campaigns and settings, two excellent adventure anthologies and an upcoming monster book and additional setting book.

Play Forbidden Lands if you love fantasy RPGs, but want something faster and grittier than D&D with a more rigorous exploration, base-building and resource mechanic.

COMPLEXITY: 4

Mutant Year Zero

This is the first game that employs the Year Zero engine (hence the name). It takes place in a post-apocalyptic future of an alternate timeline with robots, mutants and energy weapons. It is a cousin to games like Gamma World and Fallout.

It differs from the other games in that it has four books that can stand alone as their own games or work as supplements to the original game. Each of them is a complete standalone game with all the rules required, a setting and a campaign.

Play Mutant Year Zero if you enjoy a more ‘gonzo’ apocalyptic future full of weird mutants, crazed raiders, killer robots and fanatic cults.

COMPLEXITY: 3

Mutant

You are one of the mutants in “the Ark”. The Elder has forbidden you from exploring the ruins beyond the Ark, but food is running low and no one is able to bear children. To survive and prosper you must venture into the unknown and brave mutant creatures, the Rot and crumbling ruins to find grub, water and artefacts from the bygone age and develop the Ark while at the same time outsmarting and outfighting the rival gangs inside the Ark.


Genlab Alpha

You play a mutant animal, one of the genetic experiments of Test Area B35 “Paradise Valley”. The valley is fenced and guarded by the mysterious Watchers. Can you finally realize the dream of escaping your prison?

Players must explore the valley as mutant badgers, rats, bears, monkeys et al, protect their habitats and build the Resistance to the Watchers.

Elysium

Before the war that devastated the world, the three Titan Powers created sanctuaries to survive. You are one of their descendants living in Elysium. Players are all of one of the four noble families and Adjudicators, police and judges rolled into one. They are tasked with keeping the peace and go on missions to solve problems – secretly instigated by their own houses.

Uniquely, the game has a ‘strategic level’ where the players control each of the houses in their quest for dominance. All the missions were caused by the players through the strategic level. And during the actual gameplay, one player will be a traitor, who is trying to sabotage a successful outcome. However, when the team votes on who the traitor is at the end of the mission, whoever gets a unanimous vote, is judged as the spy!

This game feels like a mix of Judge Dredd and Paranoia.

Mechatron

Players are robots developing free will at the Production Facility Mechatron-7, who, now that they are detached from the hive mind, can go on their own missions.

The book is out of print, and I don’t own it, but the PDF version is available.

Tales from the Loop

In this ode to nostalgia, you play as kids in the 1980s, but in an alternate timeline, where humanity has discovered anti-gravity and sentient robots.
You play kids (10-15), who live near a big research facility, where odd things happen (including loose dinosaurs…).

The book contains two settings: a small town in Sweden and one in Arizona and a full campaign outline.

Characters fit one of the classic stereotypes (eg the jock, the computer geek, the hick and the trouble maker). The kids must struggle with home lives and school relations, as well as the strange going ons in the area. Adults are absent, adversaries or in a few cases allies.

The dramas can be very personal (eg violent step parent, alcoholic mother) as well as external.

The game handles “damage” differently than most games, as the characters can’t die, but they can get various detrimental conditions like “injured” or “upset“ or “scared”.

In its follow-up game, Tales from the Flood, you play teenagers, who can die.

Play Tales from the Loop if you want be a kid investigating weird science problems with your friends, while managing your personal problems and relations.

COMPLEXITY: 1

Twilight: 2000 (4th edition)

Twilight: 2000 is bleak dystopic post-apocalyptic survival RPG set in an alternate history, where NATO and Russia clashed in World War III at the end of the 2nd millennium. It features intensely human dramas and has a detailed survival and combat system.

It is designed as a player-driven hex-crawl game, where random events, rumours on the radio and the fortunes of war will help determine the course of the game.

The characters are soldiers of crumbled units and potentially a civlian or two, who must band together to survive. Players set their own goals for what ‘success’ looks like: fleeing west, creating a base and carving out a safe space for soldiers and civilians or roam around as mercenaries to get supplies until luck runs out?


Particularly with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this game hits very close to home, and it not for everyone, but it is an excellent design and can easily be converted for a “realistic” modern game, for example a ‘Walking Dead style’ zombie survival game (which is in fact also an upcoming Free League licensed RPG title).

The game has a solo-mode, which I’ve tried with much success.

Play Twilight: 2000 if you want an intense – and likely bloody – survival game, where each choice comes at a cost in fuel, ammunition or humanity.

Have a look at my solo game.


COMPLEXITY: 5

Väsen

In Vaesen, you play a group of humans gifted with ‘the sight’, who are part of a secret society, the purpose of which is to track down and combat Vaesen. Væsen means “creature” in Danish and Swedish, and these strange ‘vaesen’ are out of classic folk lore, like trolls, the Neck or Nisser.

The default game is set in a mythical 19th century Europe, and in the core game you are the inheritors of the crumbling castle Gyllencreutz, which works as your base, which you can explore and upgrade as the game progress.

Characters are typically hunters, doctors, priest, professors, soldiers and the like. The play-style is akin to Call of Cthulhu, but with a stronger ‘motor’ for campaign play.

The core book has Scandinavia as a core setting, but there is also a British isles sourcebook and there is help for customization for any region of the world.

Play Väsen, if you want to solve mythic mysteries in a world that is changing – where the old is being swept away by industrialisation – and protect humanity from the supernatural.

COMPLEXITY: 2

Non-Year Zero Games

Mörk Borg

The indie smash hit is a rules lite old school renaissance heavy metal fantasy RPG. You play weirdos, religious fanatics, murderers and scoundrels in a world that is ending. How will you go out?
It is intentionally very dark, funny and crazy, and the core book can be consumed in an hour.

As an example of the style, at the start of a campaign, the game master decides how often you roll for whether one of the portents of Nechrubel might happen, and at some point, you will roll the final sign, and the world ends. At which point you are advised to burn the book.

The rules are entirely player-facing, intentionally imbalanced and random, unforgiving and lethal.


The community around Mörk Borg is vibrant, with many independently publish supplements, as well as the new Cy_Borg core book, which use the same lite rules for a disturbing cyber punk game.

Play Mörk Borg if you want dreadful, plague ridden, decrepit, black metal adventures, where your chance of survival is neglible

COMPLEXITY: 1

Symbaroum

In this epic dark fantasy game, you explore the great Davokar forest, scheme for and against the many factions, and search for wealth, treasure and ancient secrets.

The rules use a D20 as the main resolution dice, but the rules are entirely player facing, so for example when a monster attacks a character, the player rolls to defend herself with a modifier depending on the stats of the monster. The mechanics have depth and versatility, but not the amount of spells and monsters that D&D has.

The setting and lore is excellent and very detailed. The core rules describe the war against the Dark Lords that drove the victorius Alberetor out of there ruined lands to the Ambria and the vast forest of Davokar, which is full of human and elven tribes, who don’t want the invaders poking into the darkness.

Characters are knights, theurges, sorcerers, treasure hunters and witch hunters. Most people are human, but also changelings, ogres or goblin. However, the player is free to build her character with the abilities and powers available. The archetypes are simply guidelines, not a “class” you adhere to.

The game is extremely well supported with several sourcebooks and a very long campaign. It also recently got a Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition version.

Play Symbaroum if you want a well-supported epic dark fantasy game with plenty of monsters and magical treasures.

“Symbaroum won’t give you the crazy tactical grid combat of D&D nor will it give you the overwhelming creative wings you can get with a very narrative game. But it will give you a good solid framework that can act as an arbitrator but won’t try and tell you how to do everything. Attached to all of that is a setting that frankly might be worth the purchase of the books.“

Lennart Knudsen, Symbaroum game master

COMPLEXITY: 4

The One Ring RPG (2nd edition)

If you love Tolkien, or want a low-magic epic fantasy game, the One Ring is perfect. This game is a beautiful and faithful adaptation of Tolkien’s world into a role-playing game.

As a game, the One Ring is at the other end of the fantasy-spectrum from Mörk Borg. Characters are heroes opposing ‘the Shadow’ in the time-span between The Hobbit and the events of the Lord of the Rings.

You can create evocative characters that seem to walk right out of the source material (dour rangers, merry hobbits and stout Men of Bree).

Typically, the group will work with a patron – like Gandalf, Bilbo, Cerdain or (Aragorn’s mother) – and combat the growing shadow, recover ancient artefacts from lost ruins and reunite the free peoples against the threat.

The system employs a D12 as the main resolution dice, but with a number of D6 depending on how skilled your character is.

The game has a narrative focused travel mechanic, the threat of ‘shadow points’ if characters do unheroic things and rules governing “councils”.

In the starter set, you get a full source book on the Shire, and a chance to play Bilbo’s friends and relatives and help him explore one of his theories over a series of adventures (expect both much tea and lunches, as well as dangers, nosy Bounders and inn visits).

See my review for a full break-down of the game.

The game also have a D&D 5e version, called Adventures in Middle-Earth, which I played extensively in its first incarnation.

COMPLEXITY: 4

In Addition!

There are a couple of Free League Games, that I’ve had zero interaction with, which are Into the Odd and Death In Space. Both are “rules light” indie games, with very specific design focuses. Both look cool. But there are only so many hours in my life… 🙂

I hope one of these description inspired you to find a group or pick up the game to run it for your friends. I could play anyone of these games for months or years and I recommend all of them.

If you have questions or comments, don’t hesitate to comment or DM me here or on one of the social channels.

Twilight 2000: Episode 8 – Ambushing Commies

rasmusnord013 Comments

Five NATO soldiers have been left to find their own way home after the last – and failed – allied push against the Soviets in the fields of Poland in World War III. After fighting a group of marauders, they are restocked on ammo and carry a bit of fuel and must now find a way across the mighty Oder River to get to friendlier territory, but they’ve decided to rescue 30 civilian prisoners marching towards a cruel fate.

This is the eight episode of my solo-game of Free League’s Twilight: 2000 4th edition post-apocalyptic roleplaying game. If you are new to the game/story, I suggest you start from the very beginning.

You can also read a description of the main characters and see their stats.

The game is published by Free League, and the art is from the 4th or 2nd edition (by GDW) of the game.

Short recap:

After being left on their own near Kalisz, the group flees in their camouflaged pick-up truck, which runs out of fuel near Syców. They try to find fuel or parts for an alcohol still in the town, but discover the ambushed remains of US troops. Among the casualties they rescue the wounded private Lee. They meet a local leader, who will aids them against the ambushers against a share of the loot. After a daring and successful dawn assault, they defeat the marauders with no casualties. But as the man they work with is dangerous and untrustworthy, with a lot of armed men at hand, they cut a quick deal, and hurry away with what they can carry – but a lot less than half the spoils. Driving towards the bridge at Brzeg they encounter three dozen prisoners being marched along the road and they decide to engage their captors.

Continuing Day 8…

The group has decided to lay an ambush. So, they lay an ambush, using the Waylaying rules. They don’t have 5-10 minutes, so they simply park the pickup behind a ridge and edge forward into a position along the road. 

The column shuffle towards them 300 meters away. They can see that the Soviet escort have one man on point about 20 meters ahead, with three people guarding the head of the prison column, four behind the column, including a lieutenant, and two making up the rear guard. 

The group manages to get into position after some effort (pushed roll). Perez helps Kelly hide his big gun. In essence, Kelly is worst at Recon, so he rolls for the entire group.

Kelly’s roll for ambushing is:

 -1 for 0 hexes away

+2 for foliage

+1 for camouflage fatigues 

+1 Help from Perez

All the characters begin the ambush prone. 

K is Kelly, Ki = King, P = Perez, L = Lee and Z is Zielinski. The column is moving from left towards right.

Round 1:

The Soviets notice nothing, and Kelly opens up with ‘the hog’ at almost point-blank range (-1 from the Soviets moving). He fires 7 rounds. None hit. It is evident that he hasn’t had a chance to sight the machinegun in. 

King throws a grenade at the rear group and hits but overstretches his arm (pushing). Both enemies are hit. But are not suppressed. 

Perez fires at the main group. He hits only one, the officer, but is fortunate that it creates a minor panic. The officer going down suppresses the others, who hit the deck. 

Zielinski hammers away, with the unfamiliar M-16 bucking in her hands (pushed roll). But she hits her hated foes and kills one in the front group and suppresses the others. 

Lee hurls a grenade. He again demonstrates his great pitching arm. The frag grenade lands right at the lead scout’s feet, blasting him and he collapses on the road, dead (2 damage). 

The two rear Soviet soldie are more seasoned as they get off the road and try to get into cover behind the big rock, but they fail to move the final distance (no luck on their mobility rolls).

Round 2:

Kelly unleashes another hail of bullets into the – now prone – Soviets. He throws a ton of lead at them at close range, and it is enough to keep their heads down, but the machinegun lives up to its reputation and jams (taking 3 in reliability damage!), bucking in his hands (one damage to Kelly). Unfortunately, the Soviet officer notices the jam (makes his CUF roll) and is ready to engage the enemy. 

“Fucking piece of shit gun!”

King fires at the two soldiers retreating for cover. -2 from the foliage, who drop to the ground under the hail of bullets. 

Perez shoots at the rallying officer in the rear. He hits him in the head, killing the officer outright despite his helmet (3 successes), which panics the remaining soldiers around him. 

Lee fires a couple of shots at the two lead soldiers but miss. Zielinski follows-up with her M-16 and fires enough hot lead to suppress them. 

When it is the Russian’s turn to act, all opponents remain suppressed, and one more is dead. 

Help now arrives from an unexpected angle. One of the prisoners jump the three guys at the rear of the column. It is a dark haired woman in her thirties. She throws some kind of crazy judo move and successfully grapples one of the Soviets behind the column, and he drops his AK 74. 

End of round two. The small irregular soldier icon in the middle is the woman who jumped in.

Round 3

The hog they recovered must be an unlucky gun. Kelly rush up and kicks one of the downed Russians, but only enough to inconvenience him (even with a pushed AA roll…)

Ahead of him, King sprints across the road and fires from the hip at the two retreating soldiers, but miss and fails to suppress them. 

Perez shoots at the third Russian, currently not engaged in hand to hand. He better not miss. He hits him in the arm. It is not a fatal hit, but enough to keep him out of the combat for a few seconds. 

Lee fires again with his pistol at the two lead soldiers. This time his aim is true, and he crits a soviet regular at the front of the cloumn in the leg, breaking his shin bone, and taking him out of action. 

Zielinski fires a burst at the last one of the lead team. She also has a double success, and as he has no body armor. The multiple hits rips into his torso, and he collapses, bleeding on the road.

The female civilian grabs the AK74, dropped on the road, and clubs the soldier with it, dealing two points of damage. 

It is now the Soviet’s turn. The one Kelly kicked turns his AK on him and fires at point blank range. He has -3 because Kelly is moving and it is an assault rifle. He misses, but Kelly must roll CUF, which he fails and drops to the ground, bullets zipping all over the place.

The soldier clubbed by the CIA operative tries to grab her, but she nimbly dances away.  

The two at the rear inside the bushes, have little situational awareness and they return fire at King. The most immediate threat (he is in shrub land and moving, so the attack is -2, but using the rules for multiple NPCS in the same hex, I only roll once with a +1, for a total of -1). 

They empty their guns at King, and he is hit for 3 damage. It is in the arm, and he receives a critical hit. It tears through his forearm, breaking the arm, and he drops his M-16. He keeps his cool though. The captain won’t let his team down! (double success on CUF). 

At this point, two more of the prisoners jump into the scrum and kick the gun out of the soviet soldier’s hands. 

Captain King is hit and a big brawl has broken out on the middle of the road.

Round 4

Kelly gets his bearings, and notices that his captain is in trouble.

“The Captain’s hit!” he roars.

King, bleeding and in pain, throws his final grenade and drops prone. He is no pitcher but manage (6 on a single D6) to land the grenade on top of the two Russians. Both enemies are now close to being out of action and suppressed on top of that. 

Perez moves cautiously north of the road, and down into hard cover, hoping to cover the Russian’s potential escape route. The team would really prefer that no one runs and alerts more Soviet troops.

Lee hears Kelly’s shout and sprints forward, heedless of danger. His fast feet gets him in front of the Captain. 

Zielinski also dash across the road and almost keeps up with the fleet footed Harlemite. 

The cvilian woman keeps struggling with the Soviet soldier, but is ineffective and damages the sturdy AK74 with her blow. But at this point, the rest of the Polish prisoners swarm the three Russians. 

Round 5

Kelly gets up and runs over to his captain and dumps down next to him. 

King doesn’t have time to bleed, so he pulls his .45 and fires a couple of shots at the two Russians, but hits nothing. 

Perez succeeds in his mobility check and moves far enough to get around the two enemies. He fires quick a burst at them (-2, because they are prone and he is moving, but is using a carbine). He hits one of the Russians and takes him out. 

Lee takes aim at the Russian, but holds fire. 

Zielinski shouts to the last Russian, ordering him to surrender, which he does. 

Aftermath

“Lieutenant, the Captain needs help!” Lee shouts.

The Polish officer rush to the Captain’s side, and examines the wound. It isn’t lethal, thankfully, and she cleans it and bandages it competently with much cursing (3 successes). In the background, the still living Soviet soldiers are being rounded up.

“Your arm is broken. But I manage to fix you up good,” Zielinski says.

The captain grunts in pain.

“True. Going to smart for some time. Would be good to give it a rest for some days.” She looks around. The dark haired woman who jumped the soldiers is on her way over. The rest of the civilians and Kelly are keeping a watch on the four surviving prisoners.

The woman says something to Zielinski in Polish.

“Her name is Anna. She says she wants to speak to you. Alone,” she translates.

Lee looks suspiciously at the woman. She is probably thirty, handsome and she has surprisingly nice teeth.

King winces and exhales, then nods. “Alright. She speaks English?”

The woman nods.

King signals to Lee to move away and Anna crouches next to him.

“Hello, Captain, and thank you,” she says in perfect American English. “I thought I was done for, but then you guys came along. Very good work. If a bit messy.”

King looks perplexed at her.

“I’m called Anna Gursky, but that is not my real name. I work for the U.S. government, and have been here covertly for two years. And I need your help.”

Twilight 2000 – episode 6 (Assault on the Marauders part 3)

rasmusnord016 Comments

Five NATO soldiers are assaulting a stronghold of former Polish police officers and criminals. Their goal is to secure the weapons and supplies these marauders looted from a massacred US unit. The five soldiers have been left to find their own way home after the last – and failed – allied push against the Soviets in the fields of Poland in World War III.

This is the third post just on the attack. If you haven’t read the previous posts, I suggest that you do! Or start from the very beginning.

NOTE: With the Russian invasion of Ukraine the setting and events of Twilight: 2000 seemed very close to real life, and it took me a while to separate the real horror of that war from this fiction. I’ve also returned to full in-person gaming, which reduced my time for other games. That said, I’m now ready to continue a few sessions over the summer, and I hope to see this story conclude with the team escaping west.

Short Recap

The group escaped Kalisz, but is out of gas for their pickup truck and under armed. While exploring the town of Syców they encounter a massacred US group and find young private Lee as the single survivor. In the town they agree with a local leader to join forces and take out the marauders who attacked the Americans. They scout their base – an abandoned factory – and assault it. PFC Perez is their “sniper”. He uses an old hunting rifle with a scope and Corporal Kelly blasts a section of a building with sleeping marauders with an anti-tank missile. The rest of the group blasts the door into the factory area and charge the factory. Inside, Captain King, the Polish Liason Officer Zielinski and private Lee battle the marauders, while Kelly attempts to get there and help them out, taking murderous fire from the factory windows.
Their allies are clearing the office building and a single ally fighter is firing at the marauders in the factory from an office window.

The previous events have demonstrated that using an underpowered submachine gun against opponents with kevlar body armor is a questionable idea.

The Action Continues…

The concrete dust was settling around Perez like a layer of snow on a winter morning. He could hear the stakato fire of the M60 continuing, but the hammering of bullets on the wall around him had stopped. The young soldier shifted slowly in the ruins and peeked across the street and factory grounds. Kelly was in the deep end of the shit hole, cowering behind a tree while the motherfucker on the corner of the factory building had an almost clean shot. “Not on my watch,” thought Perez. He expertly worked the bolt action on the rifle and crept into a new position, where he had a good line of sight and felt like he was out of sight of the M60 team on the roof. He took a deep breath and aimed…

Players Round 9
On the roof, Perez is finally back in the action, and with the final round of his hunting rifle, he wounds the marauder lying prone at the corner of the factory. It is a body hit, unfortunately, and he only takes one point of damage. The good news is that he no longer has Kelly in his sights, because he is suppressed.

Janusz’s fighter in the office building has gathered his nerve, and empties his clip at the marauders in the windows, wounding one slightly in the legs through the walls and suppressing both. 

Kelly is taking cover by the tree, hugging his M16 close and trying to be as small as possible, while the bullets hammer the old chestnut tree and he babbles to himself: 

 “Oh, shit! Oh, fuck! Stupid! Stupid! Oh, shit! Why the fuck did I do this?” 

Inside the factory, King orders Lee to return the favor and grenade the marauder who failed with the grenade throw. He then shoots the wounded and pinned marauder right in front of him. But he misses (terrible roll with snake-eyes, and no chance of pushing).

Lee helps his boss out by landing a grenade right where he asked him to. It doesn’t hit any of them, but they are thrown to the ground and suppressed. 

Zielinski is not in a great position, but she has LOS to the marauder King missed. He is in cover and prone in the semi-darkness, but hey, what can you do? She throws ammo at the problem and succeeds in suppressing him. 

The office building is on the lower left side. Perez is in a ruined building on the lower right side.

Marauders Round 9

The marauders outside don’t notice Perez’s single shot into the courtyard (I rolled a single Recon roll for them), but the brave fighter pouring fire at the factory is hard to miss, so the M60-crew on the roof shift their inept fire. They go through the last of their belt, but hit nothing but bricks and mortar. 

The last opponent in the factory windows has better aim with his looted M-16 and manages to suppress the fighter, but it gives Kelly and Perez time to breathe. 

The leader of the marauders, Mleczko, screams curses at his men, ordering them to push the invaders out, while he reloads his assault rifle. 

The second marauder, lying prone on the platform above the factory floor with the offices, aims and fires a shot towards Lee and hits, but the machinery he is taking cover behind prevents any damage (body hit). Because he can see his captain, he succeeds in keeping his coolness under fire. 

Players round 10

As he is not under fire, Perez reloads the rifle as a fast action (succeeds his ranged combat roll) and takes aim at one of the guys taking cover behind the factory windows. 

Kelly senses that the M60 needs to be reloaded, and he moves out of cover to get to the factory entrance, and makes it all the way into the factory with two successful mobility rolls (he’s big, but knows how to move!). 

“Friendly!” Kelly shouts as he barges through the door. He sees Lee and Zielinski covering behind the machinery and can barely make out King at the other side of the factory. 

“Glad you could make it!” King shouts back, while he reloads the shotgun (he fails his firearms roll). “Keep pushing!” 

Private Lee takes aim with his Glock and fires at the prone marauder nearby and hits him in the shoulder with a critical hit (12 on his A in Agility), shattering his elbow and taking him out of the fight. 

Zielinski moves back and into cover with Lee and fires a quick burst at the guy huddling at the partitioning wall. She is a poor shot, particularly on the run and in gloomy conditions, but she is peppering the wall with bullets and it keeps the marauder from getting back up.

Inside the front office building, the Janusz’s remaining fighters are done securing the rooms and begin to deploy to figure out how the Americans are progressing in the attack on the main factory building.  

Positions at the end of the player’s round 10. Lee and Zielinski er bunched together in the same hex.

Marauders round 10

With Kelly gone before they manage to reload ‘the hog’, and no clear targets, the team with the M-60 go into overwatch mode on the window where they know Janusz’s fighter is hiding. 

One of the wounded marauders in the windows pull back into the factory, since he is pretty sure that Kelly ran into the factory, and he is out of ammo, so he moves and reloads. 

One of the others Scan for Perez, but is unable to spot him in the ruins in the morning light. 

The second one also goes into overwatch against Janusz’s fighter. 

The marauder at the corner is slightly wounded and fails a coolness under fire roll, which means he does not have the courage to follow Kelly and attack him from behind. Further, it has been eerily quiet from the office building for a while, and certainly none of his allies have emerged from inside, and he scampers back, still prone, very quickly (a success on both mobility rolls with a D8! Fear is a powerful motivator.). 

Most of the fight has now moved into the factory. 

Mleczko calls for backup, and the final marauder, who was guarding the back exit joins them in the open area and runs down the stairs. 

The communist police chief fires a long burst down at Captain King from a prone position. He rolls a 10 + a 6 on an ammo dice. Three successes in all. A 2 on the hit location is another torso hit, but the wall and kevlar vest absorbs the four points of damage. King has courage under fire (6 on his D10 CUF) and keeps it together. 

The marauder firing from above keeps firing at Lee and Zielinski, but hits nothing. 

The final one, which was downed by a grenade in the last round gets back up and in near panic empties his rifle at Lee hiding behind the factory machinery. She hits him in his exposed head, and he takes another point of damage. But Lee is very encouraged by being together with his team and keeps fighting. 

The wounded marauder, who now has company at the factory floor, decides not to push his luck and stays put, until the other guy moves ahead (fails CUF).

Players Round 11

Perez has one of the M-60 gunners in his sights and pulls the trigger. He hits him in the face and blows half his head away, spattering his companion with tissue (aimed shot, pushed for two successes). 

Janusz’s fighter pokes his head out, but a single marauder immediately returns fire with what he has left in the mag. The M-60 remains silent, while the remaining gunner sits jabbering in cover pulling bits of skull and brain out of his beard. 

The fighter’s cover is hit, and he pulls back, shaken. 

Kelly’s boots stomp across the concrete, and he easily reaches cover behind an old forklift, and fires at Mleczko. It is a difficult shot (-1 from Mleczko being prone, -1 from the gloomy conditions of the factory and -1 from it being a quick shot). That is however no problem for the veteran, who hits the enemy leader in the head for 3 damage. He is wearing one of the captured american kevlar helmets, so he avoids a crit, but takes a point of damage. The lethal commander is however bolstered by all the fighters around him, and is not easily suppressed (as a major NPC he gets a CUF roll). 

King is the analytical and methodical type, and he aims his street howitzer at the marauder taking cover from Zielinski’s bullets, as he has no cover from King. He wounds the marauder gravely in the arms (3 points of 5 health). 

Lee rushes forward behind the next piece of machinery, and fires a quick shot at the wounded marauder to his right. He slides towards the machinery on his knees and bumps his wounded arms on the machinery, tearing open the wounds (1 point of damage from pushing), but one of his shots hits the marauder in the torso and takes him down. 

Zielinski hates the old regime and blasts towards Mleczko. With two sixes on the ammo dice, but no hit. This time, however, the old police chief’s courage fails him.

I think the two on the ground floor would surrender, while the rest flee in confusion out the back.

Marauders Round 12

Someone shouts, “Mleczko is hit!” in Polish and it breaks the resistance creating a chain reaction of events. 

The remaining marauders flee through the fire escape or throw up their hands in surrender. 

Aftermath 

Referee’s note: I could have run another round or two of combat to cement the results, but as a referee I would feel that the situation has been resolved and we could move on to a more narrative description of the aftermath, which speeds up the game considerably. 

A couple of marauders surrender, while most flee out through the fire escape. Mleczko is too scared to move and in the following minute the four soldiers can easily round up him, the two other prisoners and the wounded, disarm them and place them in a corner with Zielinski guarding them.

They don’t have a radio to contact Perez, which is a shame, because King would dearly like to get away before Janusz arrives with a superior force, as he suspects that he won’t be generous despite their victory. 

Kelly, Lee and King go to the foreman’s rooms upstairs, where they find most of the remaining arms and ammo from the slaughter of the Americans. There is more than enough for their small band leaving plenty for the Polish “community leader”. King grabs a bedsheet and puts it on a rifle and signals that the combat is done and when he is sure he won’t get shot, he leans out a window and shouts “all clear”. He then tells Lee and Kelly to gear up and get ready, and make sure that Zielinski also get some ammo too.

Kelly ushers down the remaining gunner from the roof and grabs the M60 before adding him to the group of prisoners. In the office there is a single additional belt for the weapon. Lee grabs an M16-A2, a kevlar vest for Perez and ammo and he stocks up on hand grenades and picks up more ammo for Zielinski. King exchanges his borrowed shotgun for an M16-A2 with ammo and a couple of grenades. They make sure that they don’t grab more than half, as they don’t want to give Janusz an opportunity to say they didn’t hold their end of the bargain. But in any case, there is more gear than they can carry. 

Zielinski is questioning the prisoners about gasoline. The old police car that was inside the factory was hit a couple of times and is not in great condition, but it does have some gas in it, she learns. 

At this point, four of Janusz’s goons arrive inside the factory. They strut over to the prisoners and (in Polish) begin taunting them. Perez arrives a minute later and discretely get a new kevlar vest on, picks up a couple of rations and so forth.

King is nervous and when Janusz arrives at the factory a few minutes later with another handful of armed goons, he positions Kelly and Perez casually on the walkway in front of the foreman’s office, so they – like the marauders before them, can cover the factory floor. He orders Lee to stick close to him and asks Zielinski to talk to her countryman, but also asks her to ensure that the Polish leader is both intimidated and happy – presenting the captured marauder as a gift. 

Janusz is a bearded, gruff looking man with steely gray blue eyes. He carries a revolver and probably wears body armor beneath his overcoat. The man eyes the bloody factory floor and does not miss the two heavily armed soldiers above them. His men also fan out, in a not very subtle threat gesture. Then Zielinsko welcomes him with a smile and explains that they indeed hit the jack-pot and there will be a greater share for Janusz, as they can’t possibly carry that much equipment with them – and that he gets his enemy alive – to do with what he pleases. 

Rules: Zielinski has the goal of convincing Janusz to let them all go with what they can carry, including half the gasoline, but leaving a lot more than half for him and his men. As Janusz has double the number of people on his side giving Zielinksi a -1. But as attacking the factory counts as ‘helping him previously’ Zielinski gets +1. Furthermore, because the offer makes sense and the group are clearly capable soldiers, which would in a fight inevitably cause casualties among Janusz’s men, weakening him (which I count as ‘presenting your case well’) Zielinski gets another +1 for a total of AA. 

She rolls a 4 and a 12, meaning two successes. 

Janusz smiles affably and pretends that he is their best friend. He talks about their fatherland and what a great victory it is for their community, and he even allows them to take all of the gasoline in the car (because of the extra success that Zielinski rolled). It has 30 liters left. 

This defuses the action and the team walks out of there heavily loaded with gasoline, guns and ammo and return to their hidden vehicle. 

I award five XP to all of the characters. 

King spends five and purchases Survival D. 

Kelly spends five and purchases Mobility D. 

Final note on game lethality: the reason why all characters survived this without critical injury or death is kevlar, cover and luck. I rolled many body and head hits and no arm or leg hits on the characters. Had I done so, it could easily have taken a character out resulting in a “death spiral” of failure. But that didn’t happen this time.

Next time we will see how far they get on half a tank of fuel…?

Twilight 2000 – solo – Episode 3: Ambushed Americans

rasmusnord013 Comments

Four soldiers are fleeing a Soviet counter-offensive in the aftermath of World War III. The three American soldiers and a Polish liason officer were thrown together when the 5th US mechanized division was broken outside of Kalisz. The final radio call was: “You’re on your own. Good luck!” This is their story.

Welcome to episode 3 of this solo role-playing campaign! I’m playing the post-apocalyptic RPG Twilight: 2000 in its fourth edition from Free League Publishing. In the first part I go through the events of the game. At the end of the post I have a couple of more “meta-considerations” on how I’m running it solo and the rules. Episode 4 will feature my first big combat encounter.

Last episode, the team encountered Soviet forces, when they tried to get fuel from Ostrzeszów. They were discovered sneaking into the town, were shot at and had to flee. Driving off road, as well as a navigation error, cost them a lot of fuel. Ultimately, they camped at a ruined farm, where they hid their pickup truck.

Read the previous content:
Intro and game considerations
Episode 1
Episode 2

Sycow had about 10,000 inhabitants before the war.

Minor Spoiler Alert: Because I am using random elements from the core ruleset, you may encounter the same pieces of content as a player. Sometimes they aren’t what they seem, which can ruin the surprise. I am not using the big scenarios sites, however, so there are no major spoilers.

Day 3

Being less than 2 kilometers south of Syców, they again opt to approach town on foot in the early morning, hoping to find someone to trade with. 

Moving into the town, they suddenly hear sustained gunfire, but only for 10-15 seconds. Then it is quiet. The group sneaks forward. The noise has clearly scared any inhabitants into retreating to their hideouts. 

Perez peeks around a corner and pulls back quickly. 

“Shit man, they’ve been mowed down. Slaughtered!” 
“Easy now. Do you see anyone?” King asks. 
He peeks out again. 
“No hostiles that I can see. It is real fucked.” 
“Cover us,” says the captain and points to Perez and Kelly. They both nod and Perez takes up position as the captain and Zielinski runs forward into the street. Kelly follows behind the two officers and takes up position opposite of Perez. 

Perez is right. It is a slaughter. Around a dozen American soldiers lie shot up in the street between ruined buildings. A couple of them are still moving. They have been stripped of all their gear – even their helmets and boots. 

Zielinski and King move among the bodies. Most are riddled with bullets. One is still trying to crawl away, and Zielinski quickly moves closer and examines him, speaking to him gently. He has a bullet hole in his upper abdomen and blood is pouring from his mouth. He gasps for help. King steps over to help her save him, but before he gets there, the man is dead.

“He was bleeding internally. I couldn’t save him,” she says. She isn’t crying, but King senses her immense frustration. 

“They can’t be long gone. I don’t like this,” King says.

“Are you American?” someone suddenly says with a strained voice. It is coming from one of the “corpses”. They rush over to him, and a young African American man in bloody fatigues sit up. His nose is smashed and blood has run down his face. Zielinski helps the man to a better position and checks his wounds. A bullet has also torn one of his arms and the nose needs fixing, but the wounds aren’t lethal. She spends her personal medkit bandaging the wounds and cleaning them. 

“What’s your name kid,” King asks?

“Lee. Miles Taylor Lee.” He speaks with a nasal voice because of the nose. 

Where are you from?”

“New York. Harlem.”   

After treating Lee, Zielinski discovers another soldier still breathing. He is conscious, but can’t move his legs, and she determines that he has been hit near the spine. He needs treatment, and King wants them out of the vulnerable position, so Kelly finds a couple of planks and jury rigs a stretcher for the critically injured soldier. Unfortunately, when they move him, he dies. 

Rules: the rules for critical hits in Twilight: 2000 are brutal. 70% of the critical head and chest injuries are potentially lethal, and whenever you attempt to move a lethally injured, if you fail your medical aid roll (which Zielinski did, even after pushing) the wounded must roll Stamina or die. On a side note, a scene like this with new players would be great, because it demonstrates the lethality of the critical rules, without risking a PC death very early in the game (not that that is necessarily a problem). 

Boots & a brew

Inside a nearby ruined house, they question private Lee. He was a truck driver with the logistics section of the 2nd Armored Division, but ended up with a rifle and a group of stragglers on their retreat after the truck ran out of fuel. They were ambushed by about a dozen marauders and cut down. He played dead while they stripped him. Only his canteen is left. Lee can’t really move about in the ruins without boots or shoes at least, so King asks Zielinski to see if she can find someone to trade with for boots and maybe fuel. He also asks Kelly to give the kid the Glock they found, so he can defend himself, which the big Irishman reluctantly does. 

In the ruins of Sycow, Zielinski manages to find a bar and trade station. It is located in the basement of a semi-ruined apartment building and is well guarded. The basement has a large room with a couple of locals huddling close to a warm stove in a corner gossiping and drinking home brewed vodka. It is early – or maybe late? – for the small group. But someone is brewing alcohol…

In a room next to the bar she finds items for trade. The “store” is a counter with a system of shelves behind it. A woman looks to be the “shopkeeper” and a big Polish man with a sawn off shotgun is guarding the valuables, which includes a pair of polish army boots size 11. The woman at the counter wants 20 bullets for it. Appealing to her good heart and the fight for Poland against the aggressors, Zielinski manage to get her down to 15. When she asks about fuel, she is told that they might have some, but that they need to talk to Janusz, who owns the place. 

You don’t want to walk around war-torn Poland in your bare feet…

Zielinski returns to the team with the boots and relays the information. They help Lee move there and get him situated in the bar room with Perez aiding him and keeping watch. Perez spends 2 ammo to get them both a drink. It burns all the way down, but it helps with their morale and Lee and Perez both regain one stress, from the drink and being in relative safety. 

Rules: Stress is the “mental hitpoints” of the game, which you lose from getting shot at, rolling 1s when pushing INT or EMP skills or from horrific situations like experiencing the massacre of your friends. Losing all your stress points incapacitates you. Characters can be pushed back on their feet using the Command skill. Regaining stress from a strong drink isn’t according to RAW, but in this situation I felt it would be appropriate. 

In the trading area, the rest of the group gets a meeting with Janusz Kucinski. He is the leader of the operation and after they have talked for a while, with Zielinski translating, he has a proposition for them.

A mission, of sorts…

The people who ambushed the American soldiers are a gang of marauders, who occupy a small  abandoned factory on the edge of town. They are led by the town’s former police chief – a man named Mleczko – who was the Police Commander of the town during the previous regime, a vicious man, who is now trying to create a petty fief for himself.

The marauder gang is full of former criminals, ex-police and a couple of deserters. They are a menace to the town, and Janusz wants their help to assault the marauder base – ideally take out their leader – and break up the gang. He claims that they have a lot of equipment, probably also fuel, as well as the weapons they looted from the US soldiers. They have an old police jeep, but he hasn’t seen it for a while, and he doesn’t know if it is working. Janusz is willing to aid them with five of his “fighters”. His fighters are not military, and are not as well armed as the marauders, but he claims they can hold their own. If they succeed, they will split what they find – including the American gear – 50/50. Further, Janusz claims that he has some information for them, which he believes they will find valuable.

Janusz also briefly describes the enemy position. The factory is walled, has an office building – where many marauders are holed up – and a factory building with more marauders and the leader, Mleczko. On the roofs and inside the walls there are a total of three fortified positions. But he knows exactly where many marauders sleep in the office building, because he has talked to women who have stayed there. He is sure that an effective surprise attack will work, even though they will be outnumbered at least 2:1. 

King and the rest of the team withdraw to the bar and discuss their options.

Clearly, Janusz is not doing this out of the goodness of his heart. The marauders are probably both a threat and competition, but does that matter, because their interests are aligned? At least until they get the loot, they will be allies.

The real question for the group is: is the risk worth the reward? Will they be able to pull it off without anyone getting killed? The facts are: they are almost out of fuel, have only a couple of days worth of food, aren’t particularly well armed and now have an extra man who is wounded to care for – who basically has no equipment. Their options are basically to start walking out of Poland with what they have, or to accept this risky undertaking. 

They accept, under a couple of conditions:

  • They need time to scout the location, get to know the “fighters” a bit and perhaps get Lee ready to join them, and Janusz must feed and house them while they do so. 
  • They need to borrow a rifle with scope and a shotgun or a rifle with ammo to increase the chance of success. 
  • He can keep the vehicle, if they have one, but they have first dibs on fuel, up to the first 100 liters. 
  • If the attack fails, they will all withdraw, covering each other, and part ways without anyone being in debt to anyone else.  

Janusz agrees. 

The world of Twilight: 2000 is full of not very nice people, but you have to trust sometimes. B/W art is from Twilight: 2000 2nd edition.

Can they trust Janusz?
I drew an Oracle card to help me judge how Janusz might respond, when the mission is done – for good or bad. You will have to check out the next episodes, to learn what card I drew…  I did allow the three characters doing the negotiations to roll a straight empathy roll, to ascertain his character. King certainly gets the vibe that he is a cold, very dangerous man, whereas Zielinski and Kelly aren’t so sure.

Game-considerations:

These events are evolving from the random encounter of the ambushed US soldiers and the motivations of the team. If the American with the wounded spine had survived, it would have brought interesting tension between the characters who don’t want to burden the team with “dead weight” and those who have more altruistic motivations.

The medical care rules is also something one might consider house-ruling. Obviously, an officer with some basic first aid training would not – in reality – be able to save someone shot so bad they require full surgery. You could rule that tending some of the worst crits requires the Field Surgeon or General Practitioner specialities. Or add a significant penalty to the rolls without proper equipment/specialities.

I’m developing the two opposing factions exactly as I would in a “real” game. With my gaming group, I am certain that they would “bite” on this opportunity for tactical combat and action with the promise of loot. I’m sure “realistically” a small – skilled but under-armed – team would balk at taking on superior numbers in a fortified position, even with surprise, as quite a few things need to go right.

As a side note, Twilight: 2000 is a game where you shouldn’t roll dice too often, because succeeding is hard. As soon as I had the idea that there was a rival of the marauders in town whom they could trade with, I didn’t need Zielinski to roll RECON or anything to find the trader. Traders want to be found – even in destroyed Poland! And, as a referee, I want them to find it. It is more dramatic to have this development, and it ensures that there is some “meat” to the plot. So why insert a roll that might fail? 

Rest & Experience:

This is what I consider the end of “session 1”. Each character, except Lee, gets three XP, Lee gets two. None of them risked anything in relation to their buddies, moral codes or big dreams to get more. Five XP is the minimum to buy anything at all, so no upgrades after this session.
As King and Perez had to roll Coolness Under Fire (CUF), I roll to see if they improve their CUF, which requires I roll a one. I do not. Lee succeeds his empathy roll and doesn’t suffer permanent mental trauma after being incapacitated by stress. 

Episode 4…

The next part of this series will feature a very long battle. I will probably break it up into two parts, as it is taking a while to play out. But I have already learned the following:

  • Kevlar and cover are your friends! Or your enemie’s friends, depending…
  • Grenades are great for suppression, and you want to keep your foes suppressed
  • It can really suck not having a side-arm…

I look forward to sharing the action with you. I hope your next gaming session is great!

Jump to Episode 4…

Twilight 2000 – solo – Episode 2: A hasty retreat

rasmusnord013 Comments

When the 5th US mechanized division was finally broken outside of Kalisz, three American soldiers and a Polish liason officer were thrown together. This is their story.

Welcome to episode 2 of this solo role-playing campaign! I’m playing the post-apocalyptic RPG Twilight: 2000 in its fourth edition from Free League Publishing.

Last episode, the team fled in from the advancing Soviets in a pickup truck with half a tank of fuel. For the first day, they kept out of serious trouble and picked up some information from a couple of Polish hunters.

Read the previous content:
Intro and game considerations
Episode 1

Minor Spoiler Alert: Because I am using random elements from the core ruleset, you may encounter the same pieces of content as a player. Sometimes they aren’t what they seem, which can ruin the surprise. I am not using the big scenarios sites, however, so there are no major spoilers.

Day 2:

A chill, but sunny, April morning dawns in central Poland. With a concealed fire and a good camp, the team managed to stay hidden and warm in the camp a couple of kilometers from the small town of Ostrzeszow. The morning will be spent exploring the small town, which they decide to approach on foot, as a working vehicle could make them a target.

Their goal is a man named Cezary Pawlak, who has a distillery in town with his two sons. Ostrzesow was a town of more than 10,000 people, but is now probably home to less than 1/5 of that, and full of shelled buildings, burnt buildings, buildings riddled with bullet holes and roads clogged with rubble and car husks.

Going on foot, turns out to be a good decision. Advance Soviet forces must have reached the town during the night (this is another random encounter from the core rules). They have set up a roadblock at the main road into town about 300 meters (330 yards) from where the group approach the ruins. There are a dozen soldiers guarding the roadblock and they have a T-72 main battle tank positioned in the shell of a house covering the approach to the town. Going off road in the truck around the town would almost consume all of their remaining fuel, so the group agrees to circle around the town and sneak in from the northwest, but if they are discovered they will retreat to the truck and get the hell out.

One of these babies guard the main north road into Ostrzesow.

Perez leads them towards the ruins, but despite giving it all he’s got, a Soviet soldier keeping watch for stragglers from atop a ruin spots them and opens fire from a long range of about 120 meters.

Rules: I made a mistake here and had the best person (Perez) roll Recon for the group, and not the one with the lowest skill. However, as I understand it, two of the team would be able to use the Help action to improve that person’s chances. With the bonus from wearing fatigues, their dice pool would still be pretty good. In any case, the team got one success, and the Soviet soldier also got a single success in the opposed roll, which means the group is discovered.

Round 1:
The Soviet private gets to act first, as he discovered them (I rule). He fires his Avtomat Kalashnikova at the team. He gets +1 for firing from his elevated position, but -4 from firing at long range (-2), at moving targets (-1) which are partly concealed by vegetation and other terrain (-1), for a total of -3.

At that distance, the burst of bullets are off but the gunfire is sufficient to alert the rest of the soldiers nearby.

King orders the team to retreat at a run, retreating around 40 meters across the streets and long abandoned gardens.

A Soviet regular soldier has a B in Agility and a C in ranged combat.

Round 2:
The Soviet soldier gives them another burst at extreme range as a parting gift.
The private has clearly not had his vodka ration this morning, or is simply born under a lucky star, and both PFC Perez and King are hit. A bullet hits Perez in the head, but luckily the helmet takes the worst of the damage. King is hit in the back, where his kevlar also absorbs the brunt of the damage.

Rules: the Soviet rolls a hit with both his single success dice and one of the “ammo dice” he spends, sending a third of the lead in the magazine in their direction. King and Perez are both hit in locations where they wear armor, which subtracts 1 damage. An AK-74 does 2 points of damage, so the result is 1 damage on both. The Soviet could have spent the additional “hit” to increase the damage on Perez, but with his helmet it wouldn’t have been enough to score a crit anyway. Still, the one point of damage reduces King’s “hit points” by 25%.

Perez and King must roll for Coolness Under Fire. Both succeed. They can use the Unit Morale because they are within line of sight of the others. Therefore they are not suppressed and can continue fleeing.

They move an additional 40 meters and have now moved out of range of the Soviet soldier’s AK-74, and are impossible for him to hit.

Bedraggled and shaken, the team hauls ass and retreat back to their vehicle, with most of the morning gone.

Medical attention

“Can I see where hit is,” Zielinski asks King haltingly?

The captain is leaning on the hood of the truck, his chest heaving from exertion, and inwardly he is cursing himself for not keeping in better shape when he was in the reserves. Kelly leans his back heavily on the car and takes a swig of water, while Perez scans the fields beyond the small hillocks for any pursuers. 

“Sure,” King answers the lieutenant with laboured breath. 

Weather is determined each shift with a D6. On a 1 it worsens towards rain, on a 6 it moves towards fair.

With a wince, he takes off his combat webbing and the kevlar vest, then the fatigues and shirt. He has a black and purple bruise the size of a two palms on his lower back. Zielinski gently touches it, and he almost jumps from the pain.

She examines it more closely.

“Motherf… that stings,” he says with clenched teeth.
“Very big bruise. But not serious, no,” Zielinski says and washes the area with a bit of water and soap.

“Kelly, please take over from Perez, so the lieutenant can see to his wound,” King says, when Zielinski is done. Kelly stomps up and takes over the watch from the younger private.

Perez trots down with downcast eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I was sure we were out of sight. I should have spotted him.” 

“Nonsense. It is my fault,” says King. “I led you there. It is my responsibility. It was far too risky, with that kind of firepower nearby and no knowledge of how many reinforcements might be nearby.”

Zielinski says something in Polish that sounds dismissive. 

Then in English.

“You are both fools. We took a risk, but to get something very valuable, yes? Something we need. And, as you say in America, “shit happens”.”

King grumbles something, but says nothing. 

She gently lifts Perez’s helmet. He has a bloody scratch on the back of his neck.

“Look. Just a …” She searches for the word. “…Ricochet.” She turns over the helmet, so he can see. “Hit the lower side of the helmet first, and then down, giving you this little cut. You are very lucky, I think.”

“Yes, mam,” he says, and pulls a little crucifix from inside his shirt and gives it a kiss and mumbles a prayer, while the lieutenant cleans the cut and puts a band-aid on the scratch. 

“So far,” he mumbles as she patches on the band-aid.

“Should we stop chattering and get the fuck out of here,” Kelly barks nervously from the small hillock. 

“Absofuckinglutely. Let’s go!” King says. 

Rules: Zielinski attends to their bruises with success (which means they avoid risking an infection) and it turns out their armor is still functional (when penetrated, it risks becoming defunct – a 1 in 6 chance). Medical attention only heals 1 damage, if the character is broken (at 0 health).

On the off-road again…

They are now forced to flee around the town, off road, and the group tries to get to Sycow to the southwest. Their hope is that the Soviets don’t have enough troops or vehicles to pursue their small band.

Unfortunately, Zielinski is unable to find a road that leads west. Instead, she ends up driving south between the two towns hitting the east-west bound main road between Sycow and Kepno (because she fails her survival roll – but driving succeeds so no mishap).

They agree to head west along the road to get further away from the Soviet lead elements. If the Soviets are anywhere near as depleted as the 5th division was, they will have spent themselves in a couple of days, King is sure.

The pickup rumbles along, avoiding the odd obstacle until they reach a traffic jam, frozen in time. Almost every car holds skeletal commuters. They never made their destinations but instead died here, victims of a direct chemical attack or a wayward cloud from some battle. The most banal of ends. A few managed to crawl out of their vehicles and lay white and bony on the road. A bird’s nest crowns one boxy, European car. The road is entirely blocked, and the team needs to go back and down a side road for a while before hitting Sycow – costing precious fuel (this last part is from a list of random mood elements from the core game). 

King is listening in on the radio while they drive. Suddenly, he gesticulates.
“Stop!”
Zielinski stops, and King concentrates. The rest try to listen in.
“There’s an American soldier on this frequency. He says he is wounded. He is holed up in a ruined farmhouse. Must be nearby,” King says.
“Could be a trick – an ambush,” Perez says, still scanning the road and ditches around them.
“Could be,” King says and purses his lips.
“We should go and help him. He is comrade. No? It is what we would want from others,” Zielinski says.
“Kelly, what do you think,” King asks?
“Whatever you think, boss. We just gotta go in careful,” he says.

The captain contacts the soldier. He says his name is Donovan, and he is hurt. Hurt bad. But he can direct them to a farmhouse with a blown red roof and a burnt barn.
King spots the roof using his binoculars and they all drive there, but park at a safe distance. They sneak closer, but there is no sign of an ambush, and they locate the wounded soldier on a mattress in a bedroom. However, when they arrive he is dead. He has a civilian walkie-talkie, a Glock pistol with a full magazine, a kevlar helmet, a water and a food ration and a knife. King collects his dog tags, takes the helmet, gives the pistol to Kelly and the knife and walkie to Perez. Donovan’s insignia indicates that he was with the 2nd Armored Division, which advanced south of the 5th division. Perhaps there are more of them somewhere?

Rules: The radio message is from the game’s random radio chatter table. Here I used the “Oracle” mechanic and drew a card. It was a six of hearts – mildly helpful, according to the table. Therefore, I determined that the soldier would be dead – it would be quite useful if they were able to rescue him, and he would have a little useful equipment, but not much. Had it been a high black card, it would have been an ambush.

The bus

Having spent 2 liters of extra fuel for a walkie talkie, a pistol and helmet, they drive away towards Sycow. King is not unhappy though, as the pistol is probably good for trading. 

Before they reach Sycow, however, Perez spots a derelict bus parked in a large – mostly intact barn – next to a shot up farm. It looks to be in better condition than most vehicles, and they agree to park there for the night and make camp in the barn. The area is flat farmland, but they hope the ruined buildings will conceal them and it is a defensible position. They are down to 10 liters of fuel – or 1/10 of the tank. The bus and barn looks like prime scrounging grounds, and while King makes camp Kelly looks for parts they for example could use in an improvised still. Zielinski stands watch, while Perez sleeps in the barn before he has to go on watch at night.  

Kelly turns out to be a lucky scrounger. He recovers one vehicle spare part from the bus engine and an electric toothbrush inside the house (1 electrical part, worth 25).

When he enters the bus, he (almost miraculously) spots a viper lurking in its nest, and avoids an ambush. He acts first in initiative and clubs the viper with his rifle butt. He did however get quite the scare and he hammers fruitlessly at the creature. Fortunately for Kelly, the viper also miss. At this point King has joined the frantic corporal, who manages to hit and kill the snake just as he arrives.

“Holy, shit Captain. A snake. A fucking snake! I hate snakes!” 

When Kelly calms down, he searches the bus and comes out beaming. He’s found an intact baseball bat – which he keeps for himself. “Keeping this handy for close encounters,” he says.

The captain has concealed the pick-up with some old, mouldy sackcloth and a couple of pallets he found and makes a very small fire inside the barn in a metal bucket he punches some holes in.

It turns out that bashing the M16 into a bus has broken it (this is in fact a camping mishap that I interpret this way, as Captain King failed his camping roll). Luckily, the Captain is good with his hands and fixes the rifle, which raises Kelly’s estimation of him as not being a totally useless officer.

At nightfall, the weather turns from fair to cloudy. Perez takes the watch for the night, and the next morning both have effectively healed their bruises and stress.

That was the end of episode 2. Episode 3 will focus on exploring Sycow and trying to get their hands on fuel or parts for a still. The story takes a bit of a turn though, and a new character joins the team…

Episode 1 of Twilight: 2000 Escape from Kalisz – Solo

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What you are reading now is the first episode of my solo Twilight: 2000 campaign. I’ve written a blog post to explain the setup and my thoughts in more depth. Reading on, you will find brief bios of the characters and further down their first “adventuring day”. I hope you enjoy it – comments are welcome!

MINOR SPOILER WARNING: I am using the random events from the core ruleset. A few of them contains surprises, which will act as minor spoilers. I’m NOT using the big Scenario Sites, so there are no major spoilers.

Opening Scene…

A pick-up truck painted with a brown and green camo-pattern blasts down a country road in central Poland. In the driver seat is a not quite young Polish woman wearing the worn uniform of a second lieutenant. Next to her, in the passenger seat, is a somewhat dazed African American Captain pushing 40, wearing glasses. In the cargo bed lies a red-headed corporal, M16 in hand with blood stains on his face and clothes – none of it his own – staring into the sky. Looking back from where they came is a young hispanic private in fatigues with his M4 carbine ready.

Welcome to: Escape from Kalisz! This text is the result of the first “in game” day of my Twilight: 2000 4th edition solo-campaign. There is a more comprehensive introduction, but you can also just read on. Knowledge of the game is not a requirement!

The characters are:

Captain Charles King
King went to community college on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia and got a degree in electrical engineering. He subsequently joined the army to become an officer. He ended up doing intelligence work as a staff officer, but got stuck as a captain. Maybe his superiors thought he wasn’t aggressive enough, or maybe it was a race thing? King mustered out and became a manager at a power plant. In the meantime, his marriage had failed, and when the war broke out he was called up as a reservist. In Poland, he was attached to the Intelligence section of the 5th division. However, shortly before Operation Reset and the push on Lodz he was given command of an understrength company, basically a platoon and a half of maybe 50 grunts.

This is close to how I imagine King. The real man is US army Chaplain Matthew Zimmerman Jr.

The company suffered many casualties pushing towards Lodz and had to retreat with the rest of the division. 10 minutes before the game begins, the “battalion” has fought a rearguard action, and is soundly trounched: attacked by ground forces and hit with both mortars and a bit of artillery. When the defense breaks down the survivors scatter.

Charlie actually turned out to be a capable leader in his short stint as a company commander, despite his looks as a desk jockey. He is ashamed that he didn’t save more of his men, and considers his past a failure with two failed careers and a failed marriage. He is determined to save this little group. This will succeed!

Lieutenant Krysia Zielinski
The 34 years old Second Lieutenant was a history teacher at a highschool in Warsaw before the war. But in 1997, when the Soviets attacked, she joined the Polish army as an officer. She got rudimentary training and ended up being in charge of handling conscript labour and security after the first nuclear attacks (she has 6 permanent Rads). For the last offensive, she is transferred to be the brigade liason officer between the Polish and the US. She is not an English expert, but knows enough to get along. Her dream is to find her mother, father and younger sister. They fled west after the invasion.

Corporal Jason Kelly
Kelly is a young-ish working class Irish-American from Michigan. After high school he became a construction worker, but found the job tedious and decided to join the army in 1995. He deployed to Poland in 1997 and has fought in a mortar team the whole war. Before Operation Reset he was given the leadership of the team, which scared him. Kelly has never really found something he was the best at – or even great at – but given the chance, he could shine as a loyal survivor.
He has never been afraid of a good brawl, and is not the type to back down if people push him.

PFC Juan Pérez
Juan came to Texas as an immigrant with his violent uncle and loving aunt and became a runner and spotter and messenger for a gang before he entered his teens. When he was arrested as a juvenile, he got the option to join a military school in return for a lenient sentence. He took that out, and when he was 18, he joined the army just as the war began to loom. He was sent to Poland in early 1998, and excelled in a reconnaissance role. He prides himself of his ability to handle this chaotic environment compared to all the soft Americans. He hates the cold though. Maybe he can get to Spain or Portugal, or somewhere else warmer?

After a couple of kilometers…

Zielinski pulls the pickup truck to the side of the road inside a small copse of trees in the otherwise fairly flat farmland. Captain King has recovered his wits and thanks Zielinski, whom he knows somewhat from his work at HQ. He checks on Kelly, who isn’t wounded, and talks him into a more coherent state. Kelly explains that his mortar squad was hit by counter-fire, and the rest of the team was killed. Pérez is alright and maintains watch, while they do a status. Zielinski gets on her radio, where she picks up the message from HQ: “Good luck. You are on your own!” The 5th US Mechanized Infantry Division has ceased to exist and the Soviet 6th Independent Guards Motor-Rifle Brigade seems to keep pushing west. Gunfire and explosions can still be heard to the east.

King manages to center the team and get them to focus. They agree that using the main road and driving towards Kalisz would be too risky, and they therefore decide to head southwest and see if they can find a small bridge or ford, where they can cross the river (looking at Google Maps versus the game map, it is in fact a stream, not a river, with many small bridges).

Status:

From both a meta and in-game perspective this is the status of the small group:
Good:

  • Fair ranged combat skills
  • Strong command and persuasion skills, fairly good team morale (B)
  • Enough food and water to last a few days – 18 total food, 14 total water rations
  • A working pickup truck with 50 liters of alcohol fuel
  • One anti-tank weapon (M136 AT4)
  • Captain King has decent tech skills

Not so Good:

  • Weak firepower. Only two assault rifles in the team with a meager total of five reloads
  • Not great survival or driving skills
  • Fairly weak medical skills
  • Only one with any Recon skills

The team agrees that the following are priorities:

  • Get further away from the advance of the Soviets – as fast as possible
  • Avoid violent engagements, unless no other options are available
  • Acquire more fuel for the pickup, or get enough parts to build a small still
  • Pick up US stragglers, if they have room
  • Acquire food
  • King and Zielinski only carry a pistol and an underpowered Polish submachine gun, respectively. Acquiring more ammo and decent range weapons for the officers would be an advantage.

Rules:
A group gets one “group item” per character at the beginning of the game. I’ve picked: M136 anti-tank missile, a pair of binoculars for King (bonus on recon rolls), a basic toolkit (which means they can maintain and repair the truck) and D6 extra rations. Whether the group gets a vehicle is also random. I rolled a pickup-truck.

Day 1 Begins

Location: Map grid Q24 about 10 km southeast of the ruined town of Kalisz

Shift 1 was spent fighting the Soviets and fleeing. The game begins at the outset of Shift 2. The weather is fair. Zielinski is driving, Perez is on watch, while King is resting and Kelly sleeping. 

Rules: Each day is made up of four shifts of six hours each. For each shift there are different actions each character can take (rest, take watch, scrounge, hunt etc.). Typically, the team travels during the morning and the day shifts and makes camp in the evening and sleeps during the night. To enter a new hex off road, they need to succeed in a survival roll, and the driver must succeed a drive roll every shift to avoid Mishaps. Zielinski succeeds at both. 

Zielinski skillfully navigates the truck across the small country roads. Most of the farms are abandoned or in ruins after the front moved over the area a couple of times. The fields are fallow and full of weeds and progress on the small roads is frequently stopped by fallen trees, craters or mudslides. They do spot a farmhouse that seems inhabited, but with Soviets not far away, they do not stop to investigate (it was the first encounter that shift). 

From a small hill, using his binoculars, King spots a bridge that was probably mainly used by farmers back in the day (very successful Recon roll). The team drives another hex. Now they’ve spent 16 liters of alcohol fuel out of their total of 50. 

Rules: normally the pickup consumes 2 liters per 10 km hex (6 miles), but as it is driving offroad that number is doubled, and it is doubled again because it runs on alcohol and not gasoline. 

After a short break, the two officers decide to use the main road a couple of kilometers up ahead to move south towards Ostrzesow, as it will conserve fuel and they will move faster. Further, it seems like heading towards Wroclaw is the best option if they are to cross the large Oder River further west. 

On the way to the road, three Polish civilians (one with a shotgun, another with a rifle and the third with a bow) hails them. Zielinski stops and talks to them in Polish. They are hunters who have managed to kill a deer and want to trade with the characters. They have four rations of meat they want to sell for 25 (the game uses ammunition as currency). The team only has 10 extra ammo as spare “cash”, but Zielinski thinks that purchasing the food will both win over her teammates and help befriend the hunters, so she trades an entire reload for her submachine gun with a couple of rounds to spare. She gets on such good terms with them (she rolls 3 successes on Persuasion) that she gets a discount and when she asks them about fuel they know a guy in Ostrzesow who produces some, which they may be able to trade for. 

The trade and negotiations take up some time, before they drive to the main road. The road is pockmarked by artillery and has many empty husks of vehicles. They make it safely to the outskirts of Ostrzeszow a little before evening sets in. The group decides to make camp a couple of kilometers from the town. Moving along two hexes with roads, they spend another 8 liters of fuel. They are down to a quarter tank. 

Their pickup doesn’t come with a machinegun, but perhaps they can acquire one?

In the evening, King will make camp and try to conceal it, helped by Kelly. Perez will be on watch, while Zielinski goes out to forage for some more water. 

“It is almost like barbecuing back home,” says Kelly, grinning. He is turning the meat on a green pine branch, blood and fat dripping into the fire, sizzling. The fire is concealed in a hole in the ground. 

The big man looks around in their small camp. The pickup is parked down between a couple of hillocks covered in pine trees and brambles with open fields beyong. King has made a bivouac that rests on the pickup. In the far distance they hear artillery or maybe a tank firing its main cannon. 

“Well, not quite,” he adds in a quiet voice.

“Where are you from,” King asks? 

“Outskirts of Lansing. Used to work construction. Demolition too. Before I joined up, that is. You, Captain?”

“Small town close to Savannah. But then I moved all over. And now I’m here.” He sighs. “I wonder, what happened back home?” 

King has the quarter-master specialty, and is skilled at making camping despite not having other survival skills, and with the aid of Kelly they manage to make a good camp and conceal it fairly well and cook the four rations of deer to perfection (help from another character adds +1 – meaning your dice goes up one step, eg from D6 to D8). 

By a ruined house, Zielinski finds an old garden rain barrel and fills their canteens and water bottles. They eat their fill of delicious venison and relax a bit. At night, Kelly is on watch, as he slept during the day in the truck. 

This is the end of Day 1.

Proceed to Day 2, where the action picks up…

The One Ring RPG versus D&D 5e – a Review

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This article could also be called: Why should I try The One Ring RPG? But I picked this title, because there are 50 million D&D players and many have never tried another roleplaying game. Many would like to, but which one to pick? I think there are many arguments for why The One Ring RPG should be a top option.

This article is also a review, but it is NOT a comparison as to which game is best. I love D&D, but the One Ring does things differently – and sometimes better – than the most popular RPG in the world. I have used D&D 5e as context for The One Ring’s mechanics, because that helps explain them to a large audience.

Reading this article, I hope that you get a taste for this game, or get inspired by the mechanics, whether you are a D&D player or not!

In short, I think the One Ring 2nd edition is an excellent fantasy RPG and a great pick for D&D players who want to try something new, yet familiar. The game will appeal to a lot of fantasy lovers, and I think it can be a great way to introduce new people to roleplaying games. The game is designed by Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi, and now published by Free League Publishing (Mörk Borg, the Alien RPG, Tales from the Loop, Vaesen and many other award winning, great games).

The rules are fairly simple and the setting is familiar to anyone interested in fantasy. Furthermore, the game system facilitates characters and stories that fit the world and captures the mood of Middle-earth perfectly. The artwork is amazing and the writing oozes of the designers’s love for Tolkien’s world.

This game lets you step right into the Prancing Pony, smell the pipeweed, hear the songs and meet an intimidating Ranger. Or perhaps you cross the cold Misty Mountains as a homesick hobbit alongside a couple of doughty Durin’s Folk to recover lost treasure while being hunted by orcs of Angmar? I could go on but you get it!

Below, I’ve listed some of the things that the One Ring does well, and less well, for quick reference.

There are two major reasons, why the two games are very different: their design history and being generic versus focused on one setting.

The original D&D was a system cobbled together as they invented it – and expanded upon it gradually – ending up with a hodgepodge of mechanics. More than 30 years later, the designers of D&D 5th edition created a game that is faithful to the first editions of the game, but fairly modern in design, with a very robust and fun tactical combat system.

I have not played the One Ring 1ed, so I can’t compare it to that. I can compare it to Adventures in Middle-earth, which was the D&D 5e edition conversion of The One Ring 1st ed. I have written several articles about it. It was not without flaws, but if you really want to stick to 5e rules that game is an option for you. As the books are out of print, they have become fairly pricey, though.

D&D is also a fairly generic fantasy roleplaying game which can be used to create many types of heroic fantasy games, and is easy to homebrew monsters, magic and worlds for, which is a big advantage. It can also be used for gothic horror, low magic fantasy etc., but isn’t really tailored for it.

The One Ring is different. It is a consistent modern system that focuses on creating a very particular game experience. The rules are interlinked to enhance the game’s particular focus, mood, tone and themes. After the bullet points below, I will go through the major parts of the core rulebook and provide insight into how the new edition of The One Ring works – using D&D to provide context. Players who aren’t D&D fans will still get a solid understanding of the game. If you are used to many different games, many of the mechanics will be familiar to you.

First, a quick summary. 

What does The One Ring 2ed do well?: 

  • Low magic, high fantasy 
  • Mood, atmosphere and epic adventures (with a taste of sorrow and futility)
  • Provides a perfect “Middle-earth experience”
  • Character development in the hands of the players
  • Travel and exploration
  • Combat and logistics at a more narrative level 

What does The One Ring do less well?:

  • Tactical combat on a grid
  • Hackability – this is not meant to be a generic system, but is tied closely to the source material 
  • Long dungeon crawls and hack & slash

The One Ring (2ed) is probably for you if:

  • You want to adventure in Middle-earth
  • You want to try a low-magic fantasy RPG
  • You want a fantasy RPG with more focus on narrative and less focus on tactical combat 
  • You want to try an RPG with interesting mechanics that support the core aspects of the game 

The One Ring (2ed) is probably NOT for you if: 

  • You don’t like the Middle-earth setting
  • You prefer high magic games, with lots of flashy spells, magic loot and big BOOMS!
  • You just want to relax bashing monsters and looting their stuff (I love that too, sometimes)
  • You prefer games with extensive character customization options 

If you are already sold, you can pre-order the game or purchase the PDF.

That was the short version. Do you want to know more? Then, read on dear guest.

Where and when does the game take place?

The default game is set between the events of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings in the Eriador region, where you find places like Hobbiton, Bree, the Old Forest, three petrified trolls, the Barrow Downs and many other locations known from the source material. It also contains a number of locations not featured prominently in the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit, such as Fornost and Tharbad.

More specifically, the game is meant to begin around 2965. This takes the setting forward from the 1st edition (and Adventures in Middle Earth) which begins around 2947, and shifts the geographical focus away from Wilderland – the region beyond the Misty Mountains with Mirkwood and the Lonely Mountain. At least for now.

That said, you can use the rules to play in any area of Middle-earth, and even shift the time to the Second Age or the Fourth, if you find that suits your purpose.
Sourcebooks for many of the well known regions came out for the previous edition of the game. Furthermore, you can pick up sourcebooks for Middle-Earth Role Playing, which came out in the early 80’s.

Core system

The system in The One Ring is very player-facing.

Characters in The One Ring have three attributes: strength, heart and wits. They range from 2-7 – rarely 8. For each attribute there are six associated skills. As strength covers everything physical, from keen eyes to a great singing voice, skills associated with strength include things like Awe, Athletics and Awareness. Heart covers skills like the Travel, Insight and Courtesy while Wits has skills like Lore, Riddle and Persuade. Combat skills are separated and there are only four: axes, spears, swords and bows. Ranks in skills go from 1-6, but beginning characters typically have ranks from 0-3.

The game uses a dice pool system to resolve actions. Players roll one or more dice and if the total added together reaches the target number, you succeed at your task. The player rolls one Feat Dice (D12) and any success dice (D6) they get – which usually comes from your skills or combat abilities – or two D12 and take the highest/lowest if the character has advantage/disadvantage, which is called ‘favoured/illfavoured’ in this game.

EXAMPLE: Let’s say the Hobbit Mirabella tries to sneak past an orc guard. She has three ranks in Stealth, so you roll 3D6, but the player has picked Stealth to be a favoured skill, so she rolls 2d12, picks the highest and adds the result of the 3D6.
Does she succeed? In The One Ring, the Target Number isn’t decided by the game master, it is player-facing. As a player, your target number is derived from your own character. If you try a Wits skill, you roll against 20 minus your wits. As Stealth is a wits skill, Mirabella with Wits 5, would need to roll a total of 15 to sneak past the orc. Certain conditions may make rolls harder or easier, of course, usually by adding or subtracting success dice.

However, the dice have some additional features. In the accompanying dice set, the 12 on the D12 is marked with the G rune and if you roll a 12 your action always succeeds. The 11 on the D12 is the Eye of Sauron and counts as zero – or worse depending on circumstances. On the D6, sixes gives you a superior success, and you can convert sixes to bonuses in the game, such as doing a task silently, more damage or cancel a failure for another character. You can use normal D12s or D6s to play, or get the special dice for the game.

On the surface, the core system of The One Ring is more complex than rolling 1D20 and adding a number. But in play, The One Ring doesn’t have dozens of complex special abilities and hundreds of – cool – but complex – spells. Looking at the sum of its parts, the One Ring will be simpler for the vast majority of players.

The gameplay has a structure divided into an Adventuring Phase, where the Loremaster (DM/GM) has primary control, and a Fellowship Phase, where the players have primary control. You could say it is the ‘play’ and ‘downtime’ phases. Unlike D&D however, the One Ring has different rule structures for three important aspects of the adventuring phase: combat, journeys and councils. Further, there are concrete rules for their downtime, which fits the setting and interacts with the recovery of the characters, advancement of the characters and further exploration of the setting.

Below, I will try to describe – as briefly as I can – how the different parts work, and what makes them cool.

Characters

The characters you can play are explicitly heroes. However, they can be lost to The Shadow through greed, pride, wrath and a few other things.

Cultures and Callings
The character’s abilities are mainly defined by their Culture, not by their “class” which is named Callings. Examples of Cultures include: Men of Bree, Hobbit of the Shire, Elf of Lindon and Dunedaín.

When you create your character, each Culture has six different distributions of attributes you can pick from (or roll a random distribution). How these are distributed depends on the Culture, but all of them contain 21 attribute points, so they are equal, but different. For example, Men of Bree get a maximum of 4 in Strength whereas Dwarves of Durin’s Folk get 7, but max 4 in Heart.

On top of the three primary stats (strength, heart and wits), you also calculate three derived stats: endurance, hope and parry.

This distribution are for Durin’s Folk – meaning dwarves.

Endurance is basically your hit points (but more interesting, so I will get back to that). Hope you can spend to get bonus D6s and Parry is the target number for monsters to hit you – ie your armour class.

These three derived stats differ from Culture to Culture. Bardings have an Endurance score of their strength +20, but Hobbits only get +18.

Finally, each Culture comes with a couple of special bonuses called Cultural Blessings. For example the Dunedaín gets: Kings of Men, and receives a bonus attribute point.

After picking Culture, you select your Calling. The calling is what motivates the character to go on adventures. The six callings are: Captain, Champion, Messenger, Scholar, Treasure Hunter and Warden.
The mechanical effects are slight, but they define their Shadow Weakness, such as Lure of Secrets and Path of Despair (more on that later).

Virtues, Rewards and Gear
The One Ring operates with equipment and treasure at a higher level of abstraction than most fantasy RPGs, such as D&D. All characters are expected to have normal travelling gear, but are allowed a number of “useful items”, depending on their culture’s prosperity level. These items can help the character using a particular skill under certain circumstances, such as a great pipe or a liquor to infuse strength. Characters also start with the weapons and armour they desire, again based on their prosperity.
The abstraction also applies to treasure which isn’t counted in an exact number of coins, but Treasure Rating. When you gather a specific amount of treasure, your prosperity rating goes up.

At the beginning of the game each character gets one general Virtue and one Reward. As the character gains experience they can gain more virtues and rewards.
Virtues are akin to Feats in D&D 5e. and includes general abilities such as Dourhanded and Prowess, and virtues tied to your culture, which you can’t begin the game with but must buy with experience, such as: Dragon Slayer, Elbereth Gilthoniel! and Brave at a Pinch.
Rewards are special gear with a mechanical advantage, typically weapons or armor you have earned, such as a Keen sword or Cunningly Made mail shirt.

Derived stats

I want to mention the three derived stats in a bit greater detail, because, particularly Endurance, is a very interesting mechanic.

Your parry rating is the value which adversaries must roll to hit your character. Enemies don’t have a parry rating though. Instead, players roll against their character’s Strength target number, to see if they hit modified by the adversary’s parry rating – normally 0-3. Shields and other factors can add to a character’s parry rating, whereas armor helps you avoid Wounds.

Hope are points players can use to fuel certain abilities (sometimes to make a success ‘magical’) and to add additional D6’s to their rolls. Characters don’t recover Hope that easily, so they should be spent wisely.

Endurance is like Hit Points, and you can lose them from attacks or simply from events on your journey. When you reach zero you drop unconscious. But it is also related to your encumbrance rating (which is called Load in The One Ring). So, when you don gear or armor or carry treasure, you add Load, and when your endurance rating drops below your Load score, the character becomes Weary, which is bad because all rolls of 1,2 and 3 on the D6 then counts as zero.

The mechanical effect of this is that players must weigh carefully the benefit of more armor, shields, weapons etc. versus their ability to fight after a long journey or last through multiple encounters. In D&D, and many other games, more armor is almost always better, but that is not the case in The One Ring. The core mechanic is further supported by the explicit action of dropping your shield or helmet, to decrease your Load during combat, and the explicit rules for pack animals (if your prosperity rating is high enough) or you can bury the treasure you found, because each point of treasure counts as one Load point.

The Endurance mechanic beautifully creates interesting choices for the players AND it means that the fiction of the game will emulate the source material, where few characters wear armor and treasure is buried for later or left behind. I really dig that!

I am a bit baffled, however, that it seems like a strong starting character with 26 in Endurance, who wears a mail coat, helmet, spear and great shield is left with only 1 point of Endurance. That figure can be mitigated with Virtues and Rewards, but still. It might work mechanically for player characters, but it seems like the heavily armoure bands of Bardings or Gondor aren’t viable (dwarves halve the Load, so they are).

The Shadow

The concept of Shadow in the game affects both the characters and the adventure, so I’ll deal with it here at a high level.

There is one overall foe in the game and that is obviously Sauron and all his servants. In The One Ring, player characters are heroes and explicitly adversaries of Sauron.

In the game, there also is a very clear dichotomy between Servant’s of the Enemy, which are irredeemably Evil, and other foes like regular robbers, haughty elven guards or Dunland raiders, which are not.

I very much subscribe to the views that Matt Coleville lays out in the video “Everyone Loves Zombies”, basically saying that players sometimes need to face foes they can unambiguously fight and slay without feeling bad about it, and sometimes they should face foes where there are moral complexities. I am therefore very happy with how explicit this is done in the One Ring, and the support it has from the game system.

The mechanic to support this for characters is called Shadow points. Characters will gain Shadow points when they indulge in their darkest desires or from the fear and despair which the Enemy can induce. Players can roll to resist gaining points of course. Simple Greed, whenever the characters discover treasure, can result in Shadow points and they can gain them from Misdeeds: actions that are unheroic, such as stealing, threatening with violence or ending the life of a foe who isn’t evil. Further, dark sorcery can cause shadow point “damage”.

The result of accumulating shadow points is a descent along your character’s Shadow Path and into madness, and ultimately the end of the character as a PC. Whenever a character’s Shadow points reach the level of their Hope they have a Bout of Madness – a loss of control to their worst inclinations, like Boromir trying to take the ring or Thorin being overcome by greed for a while. This takes the character one step down their Shadow Path.
A character’s Shadow Path is determined by his calling, and they have evocative names like Dragon Sickness (greed) and Lure of Power. Each path has four stages of character flaws – roleplaying traits for the character. As an example, Lure of Power goes from resentful to tyrannical.

Mechanically, it has more features than this and ties into the down-time phase for example, but this covers the basics.

There is also a group-level mechanic. When more experienced heroes work against Sauron, it is possible that the enemy will respond. This is governed by the Eye of Sauron mechanic, which is a meter that slowly fills during an adventure when the heroes use magic or gain shadow points. When it reaches a certain point – depending on a number of factors – it has a negative narrative impact on the characters. It could be a direct attack on them, or perhaps the quarry they chase gets away or someone they thought an ally becomes an enemy.

I will need to play a longer game to really judge how the shadow points mechanic works in practice. In Adventures in Middle-earth (the 5e version of the game) the accumulation of shadow points seemed too slow to have a big impact, but it seems to be a bigger factor in this edition.

Adventuring

The adventuring phase has three major mechanical components, but in practice works like any other RPG with an adventure composed of various scenes or with the group exploring a location, like a dungeon.

Combat
Combat in The One Ring has been designed for play without miniatures, but using minis or drawing on a mat or screen can still be helpful.

When combat begins, there is usually first an opportunity for both sides to use missile fire before the melee begins.

Subsequently, during the melee, each character selects one of four stances: forward, open, defensive and rearward. The stance you pick also determines the order in which you act and gives access to particular actions, such as intimidate foes or rally comrades. Only the rearward enables characters to use ranged weapons, and it can be restricted, depending on how many enemies there are compared to the characters. The enemies are then distributed between the different PCs.

I will not go into great detail on the mechanics, but there are some interesting features:
Players can decide to halve the endurance damage they receive by deciding to get knocked back (an fall prone), and rolling sixes enables special bonuses/effects, depending on which type of weapon you use.

I did however find that the combat example in the game was so short, it wasn’t useful, so I created a more comprehensive example of the combat mechanics.

Endurance represents grit and the slow grinding down of your ability to defend yourself, where the final blow knocks you out of the fight – just like hit points in D&D. BUT! in The One Ring you can also get Wounded (similar to the Major Wound mechanic in Call of Cthulhu 7ed). Rolling 10 or 12 on the D12 causes a piercing blow (some effects can modify this) which can cause a Wound. Characters now roll a Protection roll – 1D12 and add the D6s they get from their armor. To avoid the Wound they must roll equal or higher than the Injury Rating of the weapon they were hurt by.

Only by getting Wounded can your character die. At the first Wound there is a 1 in 12 chance that you go down and is dying. A second wound always causes the character to drop and become “dying” and only a successful heal check will prevent them from dying within the hour.

One of the things I really like about the weapons is that spears are very viable and more likely to cause Wounds, if you roll 6s on your attack. Too often in fantasy games, swords are the superior weapon. Furthermore, I like that missile weapons don’t have a range. It is rarely relevant in RPGs anyway and just an annoying thing to track.

In addition, weapons that are special or magical can influence many aspects of combat, and characters can perform additional actions based on their stance, certain virtues etc.

Councils
Whenever the group tries to convince one or more important NPCs to aid them, the Loremaster can use the rules for councils. It works like a skill challenge or an extended test, where the characters have to gain a number of successes using different skills to convince for example Lord Elrond, a village council or the Shire Mayor to do what they want.

Journeys
Travel is a huge part of Tolkien’s writing, and it is supported by rules for travel. When the group is on a journey, the players designate four roles between them: Guide, Hunter, Look-out and Scout (similar to the Forbidden Lands RPG).

The group decides on a path, and the game comes with a hex map of Eriador, where the different areas are colour coded depending on their difficulty, and a few places have additional dangers.
When the group starts marching, their Travel skill determines how long they get before they encounter an event.

The maps for the game are beautiful
and evocative!

The events aren’t combat encounters (they could be in Adventures in Middle-earth), but things like Ill Choices, Mishaps and Shortcuts that the group must face. The events are randomly determined and targets one of the four roles. Through narrative and a skill roll, the group determines how they overcome the event. Failure can result in fatigue, which counts as Load, and can make the characters Weary. With luck, the events can also be beneficial by meeting a potential friend on the road, for example.

The game also comes with a nice Journey Log, where players can record their journey’s and any sights they might see or people they meet.

This system does not prevent you from springing combat on your players or adding more complex locations or events to the journey. I think it has been designed to add story and mood to the game, while not preventing your characters from ultimately reaching their journey’s goal – they might be weakened by their fatigue when they get there, though.

The Fellowship & the Fellowship Phase

In keeping with the source material, the group of characters isn’t a group of self serving sell-swords or loot happy anti-heroes. They are a fellowship – a Company working together – and there are some mechanics to support that.

First of all, each character has Fellowship focus – another character whom he or she is has a special bond with – and when they aid that person with Hope, the character gains two dice instead of one. However, if the character is seriously injured or suffers a bout of madness the character who has a bond with them gains a point of Shadow.

Typically the Fellowship is supported by a Patron – a benevolent and experienced NPC who aids and guides the group. This could be one of the very well known characters from Middle-earth such as Bilbo, Gandalf or Elrond or one of the lesser known figures, such as Círdan the Shipwright or Gilraen (Aragorn’s mother).


The players normally decide which Patron they wish to have at the outset of the game. Each patron comes with a special ability the group gains and adds a bonus to the group’s Fellowship Rating.
The Fellowship Rating is a pool of points the group has which they (most often) can use to regain Hope, but having Gandalf the Grey as Patron allows them to spend Fellowship points to make Shadow rolls favoured, for example.

Bilbo is a potential patron of the Fellowship.

In the Fellowship Phase – the down time period of the game – the players take more control of the narrative. They normally stay at their Safe Haven – such as Bree or Rivendell – and can then select a few actions (called Undertakings) they wish to do during this period. During the winter season (Yuletide) there are also some additional special options, as that period is typically several months, and allows the characters to go back to their families or kin, visit far off patrons and the like.
Undertakings include Gather Rumours, Study Magic Item, Strengthen Fellowship and Write a Song (yes, songs have a mechanical effect!).

The Fellowship phase is also the time where Hope can be renewed Shadow scars can be healed – and it is the time that players can spend their hard earned XP!

If a character gets a reward from his culture – an grievous weapon, close fitting armor or the like – this is where the player narrates how they get it.

Lastly, the character can raise an heir. By spending XP and Treasure on raising an heir, the player can prepare a new character for when the current one dies or retires – a fun feature for a long campaign, and completely in keeping with the novels.

Adventures, Monsters, Magic & Lore

The game also comes with around 30 pages of information about Eriador, rules for generating magical treasure and Nameless Things from the dark, monster mechanics and 21 monster stat blocks and an example of a Landmark – an adventuring location with lore, NPCs, plot, treasure and monsters.

As is clear from the rules, the game is focused on adventures consisting of a number of scenes, potentially with a ‘dungeon style’ location. It is however not meant to be 4-6 encounters per adventuring day. I would expect to have combat in most sessions, but certainly not every session.

Lore & Landmarks

The lore in the book is a good foundation for gameplay briefly covering Bree-Land, the Shire (which is fully developed in the Starter Set), the Great East Road, the Green Way, the Barrow Downs and a few other locations.

It contains additional random tables for some of the locations and plenty of hooks for adventure. The tables include what you might find in a Troll Hole, what happens that night at the Prancing Pony or what you discover in an ancient ruin along the Green Way – could be a crumbling tower or a recently torched homestead? There are also NPCs for the characters to meet and problems that they need solved.

Looking at the original maps, they seem fairly empty of “civilization”, but in the lore and in the game, these regions contain many small villages and holdfasts, ruins of ancient keeps and so forth.

I like the tables, as they are a quick way to add the right flavour and a touch of something surprising to your game.

The Star of the Mist is a fully fleshed out adventuring location in the core rules. An additional book on Ruins was part of the kickstarter and in the works.

Adversaries
Compared to many fantasy games, the list of monsters is shorter in Middle-earth, but there are several variations of trolls, orcs, undead and spiders the characters can face.

The rules governing monsters differ from characters, as they don’t have three different attributes, but only one, and they don’t have Hope but points of Hate or Resolve depending on the type of monster. These points can be used as additional dice, just like Hope, or to power special abilities – akin to Legendary Actions from D&D.

Personally, I wish the monsters had 2-3 abilities instead of the typical one to make combat a bit more interesting. The method for creating Nameless Things in the appendix actually contains quite a long list of abilities, which is good inspiration for mechanics to add to monsters.

The designers also left out several groups of monsters for future publications, such as Giant Spiders and Dragons.

I would also have liked stats for at least one very powerful creature, like a Ring Wraith or a dragon, to put things in perspective.

Magical items
Characters are expected to find 1-3 magical treasures over the course of their adventures, but in The One Ring these items aren’t random – the characters are fated to find them.

In game terms, it means that the Loremaster is encouraged to draw up a list of 2-3 items for each character including names, a bit of lore and stats for each item. And when they find an appropriate treasure, the LM can pick one or more items from that list. This means that items are narratively bound to that character: they can’t be traded within the group and they will go with the character to her death, or into retirement (unless an heir has been raised).

A neat little feature is that you can spend an action in the Fellowship phase to unlock the next ability of the item, and if the player has spent valor in getting heirlooms from his culture, these “gifts” can be handed back, and in effect be “traded in” for upgrades to the wonderous artefact or magic weapon they recovered. It means the effort/xp spent earlier isn’t lost when they discover something better.

Final comments

I think The One Ring RPG 2nd edition is an excellent game fully focused on delivering the Middle-earth experience, enabling players to immerse themselves in Tolkien’s setting and have their own adventures meeting all the famous characters and foiling the plans of the Enemy. My imagination is certainly spurred.

The game is medium – towards light – crunch, and aims towards using rules to drive the narrative forward and make sure the game hits the right mood and atmosphere.

There are a lot of mechanics that I really like, and from my – very limited – experience the combat moved smoothly.

Reading the official forums, some fans of the 1st edition liked some aspects of the previous edition better. The previous edition had more mechanics for example for Councils and more uses for Hope. I can see that. As I understand it, in this edition, the designers have moved towards less rules for councils and more focus on letting the group narrate how it plays out. I think it is a matter of taste what you prefer.

If you have mostly played D&D 5th edition, I hope this article inspires you in your own game, and perhaps to pick up one of the many other great RPGs.

If you want to run a game with the same tone and mood as in Middle-earth, but in your own world with your homebrew evil overlord – whom the characters can actually defeat, instead of this other more important adventuring party! – I recommend the indie game Against the Darkmaster. It emulates the design of the old MERP/Rolemaster rules with more magic and crit tables, but with modern design. Funnily, also designed by Italians!

The One Ring 2nd Edition certainly touches the Middle-earth fan in me, and I hope to try it out as soon as I return to Copenhagen and my regular circle of gaming friends.

None More Black – review and Keeper advice

rasmusnord017 Comments

The Call of Cthulhu adventure None More Black, by Brian M. Sammons, appears in the Doors to Darkness adventure collection for the 7th edition of the classic horror game. All the adventures in the book are meant as introductory to the world and system, and this adventure succeeded very well as that. It was fun to play, with variety in the challenges and it had a very cool ending.

The adventure features an unexplained death of a young college student, Walter Resnick. He was found dead in his room at a local boarding house, after he had been missing for a few days. The characters could either be local officials, such as police, coroner and perhaps a college professor, or friends of the dead student, or alternately hired investigators who get embroiled in the cause of his death.

I can highly recommend the adventure as the first adventure for a longer campaign, as the threat isn’t overwhelming, or as a stand-alone ‘one shot’ introduction to Call of Cthulhu.

It was the first adventure for our pandemic-downtime Call of Cthulhu mini-campaign. We run two parallel groups of three characters. All the characters are part of the same detective agency, Duke & Whitlock, and we switch up the characters for the next adventure, where I will be running That Jazz Craze, from Harlem Unbound.
The other Keeper ran the Haunting for three other players.

We played four 2-hour online sessions with 2-3 players for a total of eight hours of game time. It can be done faster, as some of the investigation is optional.

Online play is an inferior experience to meeting physically, particularly when you try to build mood and atmosphere, but playing with only two or three players, which CoC is great for, enhances the online play experience, compared to four or more players.


In the following article, I will briefly go through what happened in our play-through and provide some advice and highlight areas where I noticed issues or areas for special focus, in case you are running the adventure.
The rest of the article will have spoilers. So, if you want to be a player in this story, stop reading and send the link to your Keeper!

Preparing for the adventure:

How you prepare for the first part of the adventure, depends on how you involve the investigators. As my characters were private investigators, I decided that Walter’s parents hired the investigators to establish a cause of death, because they couldn’t believe the ‘natural causes’ explanation coming from the authorities.

We’ve set our game in Springfield, Massachusetts, and so I needed to have an idea of the locations where the investigators would get the initial information: the coroner’s office, the police and the boarding house. I also needed some names of students, who were part of the ‘bad element’ Walter was involved with. I’ve written that into a document you can download and use.

One of my few points of criticism for the adventure would be that there is only one physical handout for the adventure. It would have been nice, if the adventure came with eg an autopsy report and some excerpts from the Dover journal.
If you feel like you have the time and skill, you should consider making handouts for an autopsy report and an excerpt from the Dover diary.

I also changed the timeline somewhat. I found it unrealistic that Jacob Dover had amassed enough money to buy a new car and an old property and got so many followers in only a few weeks, so I increased the timeline to three very active months. One of the reasons I found it unrealistic was also that three deaths among young – upper middle class – people in a university in three weeks, would certainly be a scandal and create significant police and public awareness – and not just “throwing the campus into a panic”. Even if it happens over three months, it would be a big problem for a college and something you could play up in the adventure, with for example a nervous rector as employer and the like.

First session: initial investigation

The characters three characters were: a war veteran up and coming bootlegger of Irish descent, a classically educated black jazz musician with an occult experience and a Brazilian immigrant struggling actor/stuntman. The group was introduced to the adventure when the client – the deceased’s parents – called the detective agency. Through that brief, they learned that he was dead, that it was explained as ‘natural causes’, but it was an explanation that the parents had a hard time accepting, as the young man was known as a cheerful healthy man who did lots of sports.

The players then went to the natural first points of interest: the coroner’s office, the police and Walter’s home. They had good luck getting details from the coroner, for example that the tongue was black. The police detective was up to his ears in another case, and was stumped on this one, so he shared the highlights, but they failed a persuade roll, so didn’t get speculative details. At the boarding house where he lived, they got to speak to the neighbor and learned that he had nightmares and was ‘out of sorts’.

They proceeded to Springfield College (which I found this really nice old postcard of), where they spoke to the administration and found some of the ‘bad company’ that he had been keeping.

They managed to get Paul Rodger’s name out of them, and they followed him back to his house, when he came by to sell this ‘new thing’ later on. At Rodger’s house, I had them notice O’shea, in a car on a stakeout. As one of the characters was an up-and-coming bootlegger middle-man, he knew of him, and he decided to go talk to O’Shea.

From him they learned that Rodgers was selling something new on the market, and the O’shea family was interested in learning more. When Rodgers goes out later in the evening on a date with his girlfriend, O’Shea follows him, but the characters investigate the house. One character decides to search for a hidden extra key, and with an extreme luck success he finds one. They enter the house and find the stash (which they grab), the hidden notes and obviously the boots. That is where we ended the scene. If I had had more time, I could have had Rodgers coming home with his girlfriend to add tension, but they had learned a lot, and were ready to move on in the adventure.

Second session: scrambling scouting mission

There were only two players for this session, and it still worked very well. The jazz musician and the boot legger decided to scout the old slaughterhouse, without doing a lot of research. They drove out there, parked the car and snuck closer. They could see a car outside, and a little bit of light from inside. They also noticed a guard wandering around outside from time to time.

In the adventure, there is very little detail about where exactly the different NPCs are and what they are doing, so I decided that there was a Blackhead outside walking the perimeter once in a while, smoking a cigarette and such, but not very worried or aware.

The characters managed to sneak up to the side of the building, and from cracks in the gate on a loading ramp they could hear the chanting and Dover’s voice ordering them around, when a Blackhead had finished his spell. They try to peek into the slaughterhouse, but they need to climb to a window up under the roof. They fail their stealth test (which they are pretty bad at), push, and are discovered. The Blackhead who was patrolling comes running, and Willis Carter, the linebacker bodyguard moves outside and starts the car to use the lights on the car.

One of the few things I found missing was a more detailed description of the slaughterhouse, which my players visited twice.

I then initiate a chase scene. Unfortunately, the bootlegger is very slow, and is quickly caught up to by the Blackhead, so they enter combat, while the not very physically impressive black academic and jazz musician runs all out down a dirt road. As I’m not that familiar with the chase rules anyway, I move into a more fluid scene.

Carter drives after the musician and the bootlegger ends up shooting the Blackhead with a .45 and crits, and he falls over dead (neatly demonstrating the lethality of guns). The musician reaches they edge of the corrals and dives into the hedges to hide, but not before he sees, over his shoulder, some shadows rise from the roof of the slaughterhouse (the Nightgaunts). Carter stops the car on the road and calmly walks in there with his .38 and finds the musician trying to hide behind a tree. He orders him to walk with his hands up back to his car, as he intends to get him back to the slaughterhouse for interrogation.

But in the meantime, the bootlegger has arrived after his struggle, and takes a shot at the bodyguard. In the confusion , the not very combat capable musician kicks the bodyguard between the legs and runs away. The two combatants trade shots, the bodyguard is winged and seeks cover behind the car, and the bootlegger uses the opportunity to run away – as he is also out of bullets. With the two characters fleeing back to their car, we end the session.

Third session: deeper investigation

To account for the missing player in the previous session, we ret-con that he was sleeping in the car. We play out a scene where the two characters come rushing back and semi-panicking shouting that he needs to get the car moving. They drive back to Springfield and catch each other up and make a plan.

The group begins by following three avenues of investigation. The boot-legger seek out O’shea to get his family’s assistance. The musician research newspapers and town hall archives and the actor/stunt man will test the Black sample on a dog.

O’shea agrees to go and meet his uncle with their information and offer and they decide to meet later. Behind the scenes, I’ve decided that Dover concludes that the people spying on him was working for the Irish mob, and he will have his Night Gaunts kill O’shea in the evening, when they are to meet.

The musician digs out a lot more information – about Dover’s family history, the transfer of title to the slaughterhouse and thereby his address.

The experiment on a stray dog was a fun – but inconclusive – avenue. He lured a dog to him and feeds it with some meat with the Black on it. I explained how it fell asleep and made the ‘dog kicks’ of a dog dreaming. And then he had to wait for several hours before it awoke. Later on, it began whining and becoming restless, which is how I tried to indicate it was addicted. No matter what, the players didn’t dare to test the drug – which is of course wise.

After digesting all the information, they go to meet O’shea, but arrives at the scene of his death, with a man raving about him dropping from the sky. This underscores the danger they are in and increases the pressure on them.

They move on to Dover’s address and locate his apartment, which they force open. As I understood the adventure, Dover spends most nights at the Slaughterhouse, so he and Carter are not home. They find the journal, and the end of the session is the musician doing a first reading of this ‘mythos tome’, but he decides not to learn the spell Call the Black, mainly because of the additional time it would take.

Fourth session: the showdown

This time, all three characters approach the slaughterhouse stealthily in the spring rain. Now there is a guard circling the outer perimeter, and the bodyguard was sitting inside the car smoking (out of the rain). They get to the north side of the building and with a very good strength roll kick one of the old gates in. Both the bootlegger and the stunt man/actor are good with shotguns, and they kill two blackheads in the first round.

In the second round, Jacob Dover emerges from the old office and begins casting his spell and the two Nightgaunts attack, but the bootlegger manages to fight off the two Nightgaunts and the stuntman blasts Dover. At this point the bodyguard has also entered the room, and shot at the musician, who is in cover. But in the third round they gun down the two Nightgaunts, with some good rolls, and the bodyguard flees into the night, after seeing Dover gunned down.

The musician begins to search Dover’s room, as I decided the old inspection room was used as his office, and that the deed to the slaughterhouse, as well as his cash, was in there, given that there is nothing in his apartment, and he spends most of his time there. At the same time, the others search the main area.

At this point, I decide to introduce the Raw Head and Black Bones. I did that for two reasons: I think they deserve a ‘big monster’, and I felt like the fight against Dover and the Blackheads went a little too easy to be a good climax. If they had been less capable gun fighters and they had been wounded and barely made it, I think surviving the Blackheads and Dover would have been victory enough.

But as it happens, it forms out of the black ooze and bones. The musician fails his sanity roll and flees in the car parked outside. The two tough guys shoot a couple of shots, with little effect, before it glides over to the stuntman and whacks him with an average damage roll … and kills him instantly. At this point, the bootlegger runs for his life. RIP Francisco Oliveira (you can see the obit I wrote afterwards to the left, which reflects how the characters had to obfuscate the cause of death).

The musician flees to a bar and begins drinking, and he regains his memory and composure in the morning.

The two remaining detective regroup at the office. They decide to go back with gasoline and burn the slaughterhouse in the early morning, and – as it is still raining, which should keep the monster inside – I let them end the adventure with that.


There is of course a police investigation of the fire and the bodies found, but I think the police simply want to quiet things down at this point, and are happy the Black is gone, so nothing further is done, even though I’m sure they could easily figure out that the characters were involved in the shooting (see the newspaper clip at the end, for my wrap-up).

Conclusion and final thoughts

We had a lot of fun with the adventure. It is classic Call of Cthulhu investigation, but it isn’t overly complex to reach a conclusion, so it is good for players new to the game. It also has enough optional elements that it will not feel railroaded, despite it being linear from the college to the slaughterhouse.

I was perfectly happy to have the players meet the Irish mobsters and make a deal with them even after O’Shea died, but they players didn’t want to wait a couple of days – until the funeral was over to try to negotiate that deal – so they went to the slaughterhouse themselves. I think, if you introduce O’Shea, that many groups will consider allying with the mob, unless they are very upright citizen types, and having a few mob goons along means that you can really use Raw Head as a terrible foe at the same time as they face the Blackheads.

I wish that the slaughterhouse had more information about its contents and that the map of the slaughterhouse clearly indicated what was where. I also think the slaughterhouse is too small at about 50×30 feet. I regret not increasing the dimensions to double or triple the size, as I think it leaves more room for dark corners and a wild skirmish.

You can also play up the political elements of the story. Three dead college students would be a big problem anywhere. Particularly for a game with characters more tied to the institutions of the city, this could be a big factor in pushing them to resolve the situation.

As I mentioned above, it would also have been great with a couple of more handouts, as it is one of the aspects of a CoC adventure that really entertains and adds that special ‘feel’.

Next up for our mini campaign is the adventure That Jazz Craze.

I wrote a newspaper article to ‘wrap up’ the lose ends, which enables us to move on to the next episode of the mini-campaign.

ALIEN, women and horror

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20 years ago, I co-wrote a thesis paper for my BA on gender, women and horror in the Alien films. We would have looked at it differently today, but the paper can still serve as an inspiration for Game Mothers and academics who wish to delve deeper into this universe and these topics.

Gender and gaming is a much more discussed issue today, thankfully, and I find it fitting to post this on International Women’s Day. The discussion of women and gender makes complete sense to me, especially when you discuss fictional universes and games, because it is so rewarding to examine them in the form of art and entertainment.

Ripley, as a character, undergoes radical changes through the four films, and we liken her death to the death of Christ.

Much of the theory used in the paper was already 20 years old when we used it, so from that perspective I think it could inspire others to dive deeper into the topic. That said, it is not a field I’m keeping on top of or working with, and there might be a lot of new more important theory out there which this article does not reflect.

The horror theory used I think can help Alien Game Mothers to more consciously incorporate horrific elements. As the paper describes, there are very strong links between what we consider horrific and women, reproduction, sex, birth and so on – themes that are extremely prevalent in the Alien universe. Understanding that theory can help GMs craft adventures, I believe.

The paper was written with my friend and fellow role-player, Per Frederiksen.

If these topics interest you, I suggest you give it a look!

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ALIEN: Destroyer of Worlds – review and GM advice

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Destroyer of Worlds is the second cinematic adventure published for Fria Ligan’s award winning ALIEN RPG written by Andrew E.C. Gaska. It is an excellent, action packed adventure in the style of the Aliens movie. The first part of this blog post is a review, done after having run it. In the second – longer – part I will provide an overview of our experience and my thoughts and tips on running the adventure – which means there will be spoilers in the Game Mother’s section.

In short, the player characters – a group of badass Colonial Marines – are ordered to locate and capture four AWOL black ops marines. The AWOLS fled Fort Nebraska, a UA frontier staging point located on a frigid, half-abandoned, insurgent ridden moon, currently begin evacuated because a Union of Progressive Peoples invasion is imminent, and that is just the beginning. Shit just keeps hitting the fan. Sounds cool? You f…ing bet your scrawny marine behind it is!

The adventure was published in 2020 and comes in a box. The book in the box is 88 pages, and contains a description of the setting, six locations, several NPC’s, a detailed description of Fort Nebraska and the additional rules you need, if you only own the ALIEN Start Set. The box also has seven pre-generated characters, a deck of cards with vehicles (the UPP APC, a Marine Core tank etc), equipment, agendas for the characters and visuals and stats of most of the NPCs. And lastly, there are maps, including a big-ish one of Fort Nebraska. The production value is extremely high and it looks great!

A quick view at some of the stuff in the box.


It is fair to say, you get a lot of value for your money. It should also tell you, that this is not a ‘one-shot’ adventure, in the sense that you can run it in one evening. It is advertised as being a 3-session adventure. That can be done, but you can also easily have it last four or five sessions, depending on the attrition of the characters. The amount of content also means that you can find a lot of value in the box, if you want to convert it for a campaign game. The GM can easily ditch – or change – the plot, and simply use the maps, the setting and the NPCs.

I ran the adventure for a group of five players in a vacation house over a long weekend. We played for a total of 10-ish hours, and I had to rush the ending a bit and cut down on some of the events.

Whereas the first cinematic adventure – Chariot of the Gods – emulates the first Alien film, and is a really good adventure, this adventure explores the second pillar of the ALIEN RPG: science fiction action, and does it extremely well. Destroyer of Worlds is in my view the stronger of the two adventures.

All in all, we had a total blast with the adventure. So much so, that most of the board games we also had brought along were not used.

“Alien: Destroyer of Worlds was a great visceral experience with strong cinematic ties to the movies, which left me craving for more upon completion of the adventure.”

Adrian Jensen, playing Charlie

The adventure has a cool, dramatic atmosphere. It combines investigation, inter character roleplaying with tons of drama and action. The characters are very playable with a clear goal in the beginning and with agendas that will lead to plenty of drama in Act III. The adventure is tense and action packed, where the player’s get to act out any “hell-raising, air assault, breach the door, smart-gun firing” fantasies they might have.

Like I also wrote in my ALIEN RPG review, I think this adventure is very well-suited to introduce people inexperienced with role-playing games to the hobby, because it is so easy to imagine the setting, if you just watched a little of the Alien franchise movies. They need to be keen, however, as it takes more than one evening to complete.

It is also a quite demanding adventure to run. The separation of locations and events makes sense, but it means that the GM needs to prepare carefully, and pre-select some of the options presented. There are also a lot of details to keep track of.

The only real issues I have with the adventure concerns some structural issues around Act II and III, where the timeline seems to break down and with the implementation of some major events, but the players are probably so busy fighting to survive and riding the roller-coaster that they won’t notice.

I would also have like a timeline for what happens before the adventure begins, as you have to piece it together from the description, and I’m still not sure how exactly it should be understood.

“I loved it. An action packed rock’n’roll trip down paranoia lane, as if Jeremy Saulnier was given the task of directing an Alien movie.”

Martin Svendsen, playing Hammer

Why should I buy this adventure?

  • You want to run a great Alien adventure
  • You don’t want to run a full campaign, but a one-session game is too short a fix
  • Your player’s love scary, hopeless, out of the frying pan and into the fire action science fiction
  • You want additional setting information and maps for your campaign
  • You want to run a Marine Campaign, and want an easy option for a grand ending to the campaign.

Why should I avoid this adventure?

  • Your players hate everything science fiction and only wants to cast spells and swing swords (which is fine, some people are like that!).

Advice for Game Mothers

Firstly, as you can see if you read the adventure, this text is with the caveat that the modular nature of the adventure means your experience will be very different from ours. But I still think reading a walk-through of our experience will help you run the game more smoothly and avoid a couple of pitfalls.

From here on, there will obviously be spoilers.

It is important to note, that I ran this game knowing I was on a strict deadline. After I had run the first four hours, the players were so enthusiastic that we decided to play the following afternoon for a couple of hours as well, which enabled me to do a bit more with Act II. But the choices I made reflects the time limit and the pacing of running it for two and half session, as well as the actions of the players/characters. If you have more time – especially with unlimited time – your choices, and the player’s choices will create a different flow and experience.

However, you should note that whatever happens, the main clue to reach the end of Act I is an insurgent divulging the location of the compound. There are also dice rolls involved, and there is at least one place in Act III where a failed roll can screw up the ending.

Act I: the Hunt

My players started with the Oblivion Bar, moved on to the Marshal’s Station, then the oil refinery and finally the Insurgent Compound, so the space port and the San Rocco medical facility were never in play.

Oblivion Bar

They went into the bar, and, as the veteran players they are, they stationed two at the front door. This meant that the two insurgents there could not plausibly get out without being noticed, as is the intention in the adventure. And already at this point, I made my first change!

According to the adventure, the girl insurgent was supposed to contact Botos, but I didn’t want the characters to already be aware of the insurgent leader and potentially start looking for a path via radio calls to Botas, so I had them working for Stolls instead as low level mooks.

First, however, Captain Silver went to talk to the bar owner, and as Fei2 is sympathetic, I had her ask them to come in through the back instead, as it would be bad for business for her to let them in through the front. That made the players appropriately suspicious.

I also mentioned Captain Edie, but they thought him too drunk to be worth speaking to.

When the characters notice the two insurgents, and start to interrogate them, it turns into a brawl, before Petre can take a hostage. A brawl is a good way to get the players familiar with the combat system, without too much at stake, so roll with that.

They capture the two, and put them in the APC, where they interrogate them. They let them know that they were to contact Stolls about any marine coming to look for the AWOLS. But when they now contact Stolls via radio, there is no answer (as he is at the marshal’s station).

All the while, they have good fun mispronouncing Zmijewski’s name and he retorting in kind – which seems to be a common experience.

Talking to Fei2, they get to see the security footage, and how the AWOLS argued and split.

To get more information about Stolls, they decide to go to the marshal’s station, if I recall correctly. They certainly didn’t see the potential for Reese having been picked up by the marshals. If you want a more direct clue, you can change the adventure to Fei2 or the dancer seeing Reese getting picked up by the marshals inside the bar, instead of afterwards.

It is great to have the NPC portraits. If I have one complaint, it is that their stats don’t entirely reflect how badass they are. They should have had a talent or two more.


The Marshal’s Station

This scene turned out almost perfectly, and we had our first character death. The characters get past the receptionist and talk to the marshal. They learn about both Stolls and Reese and decide to go and participate in the Stolls interrogation first. They are reasonably successful and decide to also bring him back to Fort Nebraska for further questioning. The Captain decides that she and Hammer will go and check on Reese, while the rest get Stolls into the APC. Yes, a split party!

So, when the two lone marines find Reese’s corpse, and Captain Silva walks back out to the team, she encounters the xenomorph hidden under the ceiling. We draw initiative, she fires and runs back to Hammer (we had forgotten about this rule, but the smarter move, would have been to switch initiative with Hammer, so he would act first, move up beside Silva and get a shot at the alien).

Instead, the xenomorph charges down into the cell, where both the marines now are. It doesn’t kill anyone in the first round, but when Hammer opens up with the Smartgun, the acid spray breaks Captain Silva. Zmijewski comes running, and with one more character engaged they finally get the xenomorph killed.

The rest of the characters rush to their aid, and Chaplain (Jaell) now steps into his role as commanding officer, and as he is the medic, decides not to save Silva’s life, even if he could. This can be seen as a controversial ruling, but I decided it didn’t count as PvP. Of course, the player who ran Silva was disappointed that he already had to get a new character and didn’t get to experience her arc. As GM, however, I must admit I think having someone you – from a movie-perspective – could view as a “main character” die in the first act, enhances the mood and tension – like Samuel Jackson getting eaten in act 1 in Deep Blue Sea.

Not the best movie, but a memorable death and it sets the tone!


At this point, I introduce Ms. Eckford, who simply walks up to Dante guarding the APC and asks to speak with his commanding officer. She tries to engage with Chaplain, but he calls Colonel Meyers, who I doubt would want Eckford meddling more, so Chaplain shuts down the building and moves everyone back to Fort Nebraska for a debrief.

In the interest of time, I let them get back to base and have Stolls crack and reveal the rendezvous at the oil refinery.

The scene ended with a very “realistic” mood of confusion, suspicion and sorrow. The player, who played Silva, decides to play Gunnery Sergeant Mason, instead. 

I had foreshadowed the snowstorm, and I move that in at this point.

Ultimately, I didn’t use Eckford again in the adventure. There was simply not enough time to make it work well. But I didn’t know that in the beginning, so I needed her in play early, if I were to deploy her to good effect later. If I had more time, I might have introduced her already at Fort Nebraska, when they get ready to go out after the briefing. That way, they will be less suspicious of her, given that she in on the base and therefore a “legitimate” part of the military operation.

Getting allies can be critical to their success (and a handy source of new PCs).

The refinery
The action at the refinery didn’t take long. They sneaked up on the men in the building, with the assault team leading the way in, and the rest waiting outside as backup. They opened with grenades and then went in full throttle. There was a small firefight and they finally capture one of the people there – the one with the radio, whom they interrogate, and learn of Wójcik and the compound.

The players debate, whether to ambush the insurgents when they get there for the rendezvous, but end up deciding to assault the compound.

I think an ambush at the refinery should be a viable option, and I was thinking that the insurgents would arrive in a couple of tractors and trikes and at the same time Vice Sergeant Major Davydocih would appear with his commandos. The stress of the ambush would trigger Wójcik, and she would run amok inside a tractor or something.

In any case, they are asked by the Major, if they want a Cheyenne dropship available to deploy as an air assault – and OF COURSE they say yes.

This is where we ended the first “session” of around four hours.

Who wouldn’t want to arrive in style?! Knock! Knock!

The Insurgent Compound

The group decides to do a two-pronged assault. The assault team and the Gunny will rapel onto the compound and the rest of the squad will fight their way through the gates with the APC.

The initial assault goes well, and they get through the gate and down to the roof, respectively. However, the two insurgents with rocket launchers in the inner yard gives them some problems.

It is important to note here, that the dropship can be a problem for the progression of the game, as an intact dropship gives them a way off the moon. Therefore, either the insurgents or UPP attack craft need to damage or wreck it.

In our case, a rocket puts a big hole in the dropship, and it flies away to provide firing support from a distance, but is, when the UPP arrives, re-tasked to defend the colony.

The assault team, Hammer and Dante led by Mason enter the compound from above after taking out the lone guard on the roof, and quickly encounter Wójcik. With three opponents to pick from, and a couple of lucky parrys, the group manages to defeat “her”. But are very freaked out.

Meanwhile, the other half of the team blasts into the inner compound, after shooting everything that moves outside, but the APC is hit with a very efficient RPG shot, which wrecks the armoured vehicle, and sends a blast of flame through it. Only the NPC Iona, driving the APC is damaged, but they get out quickly, and fight their way into the compound, lighting up the RPG-wielding insurgent with an incinerator.

The ground team discovers Stolls and his insurgents inside the living room, and sneak in a couple of grenades. That isn’t enough to take them out however, and they end up in a cool gun fight. I will say, the grenades seem like they are less effective than they would be in real life.

The fight in the insurgent compound was very intense.

Stolls escape to the outside of the compound, but the characters take him and a fellow insurgent out, when they attempt to climb the wall.

At the top floor, they discover LC Wright, chained in the next room, and she promises to help them, if they release her. The scenario highlights this as a secondary option for her location, and that worked well. It was especially useful to have a ‘voice’ in the rest of the adventure, who could talk about Fort Nebraska and the xenomorph problem.

The radio comes to life, and Act II begins in dramatic fashion.

Playing this scene took almost two hours, and it was great fun – chaotic and dramatic, with shit blowing up and cool close quarter battles.

Giving them the chance to blast gates and insurgents with gatling guns and plasma cannons was all kinds of fun.

I confused stage II and III for her Anathema forms, and used stage III attacks for both segments, but it didn’t influence the outcome.

ACT II: Invasion

Going into Act II, I knew I had to cut it fairly short, to stay within our time limit, but I also needed to make it feel significant enough to provide a break between the two acts, let the players play out their agendas and increase the tension.

The characters find Wrights gear, restocked on grenades from Botos and pick up his radio, so they knew someone was coming, but Chaplain collapses and begins to reboot. They were out of transport but take two of the quad bikes from the compound – one was destroyed when the gate house was blasted by the plasma cannon – and use them for the wounded and Wright (whom they don’t trust fully yet).

They hoof it through the snowstorm, while seeing the bombings of the space port, celebrations and incoming drop ships and dog fights above them.

I think it was an observation test to see their pursuers that prompted the high-strung Hammer to roll a face hugger on his stress dice, and as a result he dropped something. I ruled that he suddenly realized that his pocket with X-Stims had torn during the previous fight, and he must have dropped his drugs just a few moments ago in the snow (as I’m sure he obsessively checks that they are there). He immediately turns back to look for them, which forces the team to face their pursuers.

A hard firefight in the relative open begins, and the team gets the upper hand – mainly because of their many stress dice, and with Wright they have superior numbers. But Zmijewski gets a crit (gut shot). I forget to use the actual stats of Davydovich, but in the interest of time, it doesn’t matter. If I had had more time, he could have become a recurring threat, or reused as an ally later. But I was actually happy with how this encounter went. After the fight, Dante has a couple of blood drops run from his nose, even though he wasn’t hit (event).

I then add meeting Fei2 and her UA loyalists, and as Mason wants to save everyone, they bring them with them.

I also mention the ruptured oil pipes, but they don’t investigate them closely.

Finally, I introduce the tank and the insurgents sneaking up on it. The team takes out the couple of insurgents without dice rolls (again, I need to conserve time, and it seemed a foregone conclusion) and they order the tank crew to take them to the base, with Chaplain inside, while the rest of the team rides on top and Fei2 follows behind with the refugees.

The act ends with the electromagnetic burst and the black goo.

The Black Goo attack is a bit overkill, in my view, but it clears out Fort Nebraska.

The electromagnetic burst gave me problems, and I admit I missed that broken equipment could be repaired with a COMTECH roll. I think it is a bit too vaguely described – it says “most electronics – even those that would otherwise be shielded” are destroyed. How much of their equipment is actually electronic – and what might avoid being burnt? Is Mason’s CBRN detection kit electronic? I mean, it can be a very important piece of kit in Act III. What about their pulse rifles or Smart Guns? It seems like they would be affected. But it isn’t like the game explicitly expects them to be disarmed going into the fort and going to an armory to re-arm. Is anyone inside the tank or an APC protected, since “shielding” doesn’t work?

It raised a lot of questions, and my players asked multiple times: does this work, still? I usually said yes, because it was easier , especially given the time pressure (and had overlooked Comtech). Furthermore, the writers suggest that the tanks could be used to blow the gate, but wouldn’t they have been blown by the EMP? Because my players certainly wanted to go that route – and it would have been fun? And what about the sentry guns on the fort walls?

With more time, perhaps I could have broken much of their equipment, and made it an imperative to replace it at the base. One idea would be to roll a number of stress dice according to the equipment’s bonus dice, and break it on a Facehugger.

The EMP mostly seem like a plot device to “kill” all the hardware before the black goo is deployed, but the authors don’t seem to have thought through the consequences. Or maybe I missed something…

The artwork in the adventure is amazing. But the book is mainly text and maps.

ACT III: Getting off the moon

Fort Nebraska works like a dungeon crawl with random encounters, and where the group has to go back and forth to various objectives. I wish I had more time to run it, but on the other hand, I think with the tension built high, it shouldn’t run on for too long.

First, a word on ‘game stoppers’. In both this adventure, and Chariot of the Gods, there are a couple of times where a failed roll will completely derail the game. In Chariot of the Gods, failing to open the first air lock is such a time. In this adventure, it is when they try to restart the reactor in Act III. If that fails, it is basically game over – go blow a nuke. That kind of failure can be interesting in a campaign, where there is always another potential option, but here it kind of screws the ending. So, watch out for that!

I also ran into a bit of a problem with the black goo bomb, although I don’t think my players noticed. Given the time I think I needed to pass in Act II, they also moved most of the distance to the fort (about 5 clicks). Most groups will be coming from the compound, which means the black goo bombs have been dropped south of the fort, and the consequence of that is that the group shouldn’t run into the worst hit anathemas.

I let them experience one, before they reached the wall and its defenses. They decided to blow a couple of sentry guns with their rocket launcher, and I hand-waved that effort, although it cost Dante an ammo count. I didn’t find that part critical, given the time constraint. It is also a situation, where a freak, non-dramatic roll can kill a PC, which would be anti-climactic, given the stage of the game.

So, they climb the wall and enter the fort. They are told by Wright about the need to find a Major’s dog tag, and I added the ‘End of a Good Marine’ event, and Hammer picks up the marine saber.

They enter the lobby and find the area secreted and with several in cocoons. Later, the players remarked that it seems very quickly that the xenomorphs have accomplished all this work. I fully agree. It also seems like an odd location. Furthermore, shouldn’t there be ovo-morphs to impregnate the cocooned? However, the function of it is to telegraph that the base has been taken over by xenomorphs, to increase the tension. You could change this to an encounter with a single xenomorph or move the area to deeper inside the base and add a few ovo-morphs.

In short, they try to get down to sub-level 2, but discover the radiation in one of the shafts. Wright suggests that there are Hazmat suits in the armory, which they go get, but as there are only five, only the PC’s enter the second floor.

I roll a xenomorph encounter for the passage to sub-level two, and with Dante on point, I introduce the ‘cuddly xenomorph’, which is noticed by Hammer, and they begin to freak out and it ups the tension.

They reach the maintenance pits and the reactor relay room, and sneak past. Then they have the cunning plan, that they send Dante into the reactor room, to prepare it. This turns into an excellent scene, where Dante – sweating profusely in a HAZMAT suit – works for 15 minutes in the room, while the three xenomorphs in there come up and check him out. Very tense! And spot on for the mood.

He is a killing machine with 10 stress dice and the Overkill Talent, and he rips through the xenomorph

Meanwhile, Hammer sneaks out to test himself. He walks into the maintenance pit and charges a xenomorph with the Major’s blade. Here, I made a special ruling, because I thought it would be cinematic, that Hammer would be able to use Move to avoid acid sprays.

At this point, he is a killing machine, with 10 stress dice and the Overkill Talent, and he rips through the xenomorph. It destroys the blade of course.

This is where the whole thing hangs on a dice roll. Charlie rolls easy Comtech to restart the reactor. But fails and can’t push as an android. Fortunately, he has a story point available, and succeeds (barely) with the second roll (he should have succeeded automatically as per the rules). Without that success, the adventure will grind to a halt, so maybe have a backup plan, like going to the mainframe and ask Mother/Jaell to boot it up?

At this point, I overlook that they need to go back up to A.P.O.L.L.O to reboot the mainframe. In retrospect, I’m actually glad I didn’t, because it would have added time to complete the adventure, which we didn’t have.

Next, they go to set some nukes. They succeed in sneaking past the Charger – which is good, because I don’t have time to run the combat. They set a nuke, but fail to deduce how much time they’ll need to ascend. I’ll get to this point, when I discuss the climax.

Climbing to sublevel 1 via the chains in the ammo depot requires a push, and I use it to deploy the Charger, where the final character climbing up the chain barely escapes.

The team then proceeds to sublevel 3 with the NPCs.

Meeting the Queen is an epic – almost once in a gamer-life experience. Try to time it, so it doesn’t happen at 2AM with half the group asleep at the table!

Sublevel 3 and the finale
The characters go directly to the medlab and quarantine lab, where Charlie preps Dante for surgery. But while they are in surgery Hammer makes his play (according to his objective) and drops two frag grenades on the rest of the team and hauls ass.

After recovering, they pursue him to the space elevator shaft (I did not consider combat resolved, so Hammer is still a PC). As Dante and Charlie are doing surgery, the players get Iota and Wright.

Hammer opens the gate and is face to face with the Queen – the moment I think everyone was waiting for. Hammer opens up with his SmartGun, and with his total of 20-something dice, does a ridiculous amount of damage. His attack is followed up by grenades and other munitions, which takes out the Queen (I forgot to roll on her Critical Table, and make an epic come-back. FAIL! But I was tired…). Hammer is rushed by the xenomorph sentries and is broken, and when the rest of the marines rain fire on them, he is (deservedly) killed by the acid spray.

The remaining marines kill the last couple of xenomorphs and they get ready for departure. Because they discover that the inoculation had worked on Wright, they decide that everyone needs a shot, before getting on to the elevator.

I narrate how they go up the elevator, and as they begin to turn anathema, the nukes go off, and the space elevator tether collapses and the whole thing ends in a massive impact event.

Additional observations

Roads not taken

If you’ve read all of the above, you will notice that I never got to use the space port, the medical facility and most of the Act III events and the NPCs useful for Act III ( Colonel Meyers, Eckford and Davydovich). With a full session for Act III (or even two), it would have been great to at least use a couple of events with surviving marines and the frozen body of the Colonel.

And they never met Jaell. But I forgot about A.P.O.L.L.O. It was a lose end that would have been nice to tie up.

Things I learned and things I should have done differently

  • First of all, rolling to understand how long the elevator will take to get up there is dumb. They should know, more or less, how long it takes, because several of them must have taken the elevator, or have an understanding of that kind of tech.
  • I forgot COMTECH to fix equipment broken by EMPs.
  • A few hours after the game was over, I knew how I should have ended it. I should have let them use the escape capsule, while the elevator is getting destroyed. and land somewhere on the moon. Then more than half the characters would turn anathema – and if we’d had the time – played that encounter out, with the survivor waiting on a crashed escape module in the middle of a frozen wasteland. But – even experienced GMs – don’t always make the perfect call.
  • Overkill and plenty of stress plus armor piercing guns, means that marines can without too much effort kill Stage IV xenomorphs with one attack – or Stage 5 with an RPG. I think that is by design, but even though 14 armor looks like a lot for a Queen, it doesn’t hold up to RPG attacks, sniper rifles and SmartGuns, when players roll 4+ successes every time. Consider bumping the Queen up a bit, depending on who/how many survives at the end.
  • The recommended “three session” length for the adventure isn’t too far off, but it obviously depends on the length of your sessions, and there are many variables: Act I can be long or short, depending on how quickly the players move to the compound, Act II can be stretched out with events, roleplay and combat, and Act III has the potential to be very long, if you use the events and “random encounters”.
  • I would schedule at least 12-14 hours of game time for the adventure, and I would try to avoid doing Act III in one session to make sure you have some awake and fresh players for the conclusion.

Maps and stuff
The maps for the adventure are very cool, but also too small. I had a local print shop double the size of the Act I locations, which was very useful, and at a reasonable price.

Unfortunately, it turned out the fold-out map of Fort Nebraska is also too small. None of the players could actually read the text on the maps, which was a bit frustrating. If you have the spare cash, especially if you expect to run the adventure more than once, consider getting a print of Fort Nebraska double the size of the original (BIG).

For background music, I used some tracks from Aliens, but I also found that the score for the movie Hunter Killer also worked quite well.

Hunter Killer is a quite poor to mediocre action flick, but the sound track worked well for this adventure.

Final thoughts and verdict

I think I can speak for all of my players to say we had a blast, and ultimately none of my mistakes, or any flaws of the adventure itself, ruined our fun.

The game is so action-packed and dramatic, that it is very likely any lack of logic or irregularities will be overlooked until after the game.

The time you have to run it, and the paths your players take, will mean that your choices and experience will differ significantly from mine, and I think that is ultimately what really elevates this to a superb adventure. It provides a very solid framework for a fantastic role-playing experience, but ultimately it will be up to you and the players to make all the parts come together and have an epic, action-packed movie-like science fiction horror experience.  

With new or immature players, the “following orders” and use of hidden agendas could create problems. On the other hand, the official chain of command might make it easier for an inexperienced group to play as there is a defined structure as to who makes decisions – as opposed to a fantasy adventuring group free for all.

It is a challenging adventure to run, where you need to keep a lot of moving parts at your fingertips. I personally like how Free League structures the adventures, with locations first and then events you can sprinkle mostly as you please. But it does require careful preparation. I made a flow chart for Act I, where I plotted in the various clues that could bring them to other locations, to ensure I didn’t forget to deploy the relevant hooks.

I can see the need for the mysterious outsider attack with EMP and black goo, to ensure that the base is mainly deserted and to get the UPP attack out of the way, but it also seems a bit overkill for an adventure already mainlining cocaine and adrenaline!

In Act III, as a Game Mother, you need to consider if you still want to kill PC’s with “random shit”, and let them take over NPC’s, or make sure they die at cinematic moments?  The slow whittling down of the group mirrors Aliens perfectly, but it might not be that much fun – as a player – to have your character killed two hours before the climax of the game.

Three points of critique

  • The EMP blasts and the Goo attacks don’t seem to have been fully thought through and their consequences applied to Act III
  • The timeline for a xeno-morph takeover of Fort Nebraska seems off
  • As written, a couple of dice rolls in Act III can derail the fun.

The two cinematic adventures have covered two of the three themes (Space horror and Sci-fi action). The one left is Sense of Wonder, so I assume the third adventure might involve some colonist stumbling on some Engineer ruins and something about the Draconis strain, which is present in both adventures.

If you got this far, I hope that you will pick up the adventure and run it with as much – or more! – success. I for one hopes that Free League will continue to publish such excellent content for a really great game.

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